Atlanta has fallen and Rudy Blake has left the city, penniless and without hope. Following in the footsteps of the ragtag Confederate Army, he comes upon an officer and makes the startling announcement he wishes to join up. Proving his prowess with a rifle, he signs his name on the enlistment form and is assigned to the sharpshooters. Here, Private Blake gets his first taste of what war really means: deprivation, fear, loss, death and a despair deeper than any he has ever experienced. After a particularly dispiriting encounter with Federal forces, he is overheard commenting on the lack of artillery support and after being questioned about his background to discover he had training in the long arm at the Virginia Military Institute, is transferred to the artillery. Although his desire for death remains paramount in his mind, the friendship of the youthful officer in charge of Battery B, Lieutenant Benjamin Montgomery, and the companionship of the other men compel him to fight, if not for his own life, then for theirs. Instructing them in tactics and the proper care of the equipment, he soon has Battery B the best trained and most accurate company in the Army of Tennessee. None of this matters, however, until he’s tasted battle and put his courage to the test. This comes soon enough, with devastating losses that decimate both the Rebel forces and the artillery corps. That he survives these encounters while so many did not confuses him to the point he considers the fact he may be losing his mind. Broken in body and spirit, Rudy, Benjamin and Battery B are reassigned and are compelled to make a horrendous trek across a bitter winter landscape to arrive in time for spring campaigning against an enemy they have no prayer of stopping, much less defeating. Without prospects of hope, and little more chance of staying alive, the artillerists of Battery B wait out the end of the terrible and tragic War Between the States.