Elder Eli, the leader of his college, is an old woodchuck who has been around for a long time and experienced a rather unique encounter with soldiers during the Civil War. The soldiers and the woodchucks worked together to survive as battles raged all around them in Tennessee. The surviving groundhogs scattered to different areas of the United States to keep their sworn vows to honor those soldiers in a celebration every 50 years and never forget what they did for humans and woodchucks alike. Elder Eli and his college moved to an area near Cedar Park Cemetery in Hudson, New York, where many years later he is the sole survivor of the battle of Shiloh, Tennessee. Elder Eli has the task of honoring the veterans and teaching the very same history and tradition to his college of woodchucks. Will Elder Eli remember the vow? If so, how will he honor the veterans? Since times are quite different from the Civil War era, will there be any human interference?