He volunteered, not for glory nor for adventure, but simply to escape the woman he loved.
May, 1862, Union General George B. McClellan marches up the Peninsula of Virginia and reaches the outskirts of Richmond. On May 31st, Confederate General Joseph Johnston takes the offensive, devising a plan to force a Federal retreat. Eric Fry, a private in a North Carolina unit marches forth, having received an unexpected letter on the eve of battle. It is from the woman he so desperately wishes to forget: his brother's wife.
Hoping to die in battle, he refuses to open the dispatch. Losing his closest friend during the doomed action, Eric is left with nothing more than his campfire associates and the letter from her. Reluctantly, Eric reads the letter and begins correspondence. Over the next few weeks, Eric finds his feelings for his brother's wife are as fresh as the agonizing day he departed. Only his new-found camp life and his army companions ease his loss. One particular man, John Dunlap, a man who lost his wife prior to volunteering, senses and empathizes with Eric's internal struggles. But even as Eric finds comfort in new friends, General Robert E. Lee's decision to counter McClellan in the Seven Days Battles gives Eric hope that the chance for death will somehow ease the burden of never having the opportunity to express his love to the one woman who captured his heart.