The American Civil War is in full flame, and tobacco plantation slave Cassius Howard finds he must risk everything to learn the brutal truth concerning the murder of Emoline Justice, the freed black woman who secretly taught him to read and who once saved his life. Against an epic backdrop and with fleeting moments of redemptive passion, SWEETSMOKE captures brilliantly the daily indignities and harrowing losses suffered by slaves, as well as the turmoil of a country waging countless wars within itself, and the lives of myriad people fighting for freedom.