It's been two years and sixteen-year-old Hannah is miserable in Boston. She's decided to give up trying to fit into a life she hates and makes plans to return to the farm in Nebraska. However, it seems that Fate has other plans. It's 1861, and the war between the North and South has started. Her brother, Franklin, is being held in a Confederate prison in the South and has been sentenced to hang. A ship with Emily and their grandmother on board has disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. Hannah knows it's up to her to rescue Franklin. Somehow, she'll have to travel from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, right through the first major battle of the Civil War, help Franklin escape from prison and get both of them back across the border to safety in the North. If she's caught, she'll hang right beside her brother. Even more, she'll have to do all that without any help. This time she's completely on her own; even Dog won't be able to go along with her.