This Civi War novel is the intimate story of people living under the stress of war. In the last months of the Civil War battles rage. General Sherman is fighting his way to Atlanta. Stough, a young romantic, longs to have his life restored. His friend Tarp, smitten with beautiful Addie, like Stough, is also avoiding the draft. Attractive young sisters, Addie and Dosie, white and black, make their living running a boarding house for travelers; their establishment pulsing with complications brought by strangers. When peace is restored, Stough takes off for New York on the SS Sea King where he meets Bernice Towne, a wealthy, Quaker lady. With the addition of Miss Towne's nephew Perceval, they occupy us for the rest of the story. In their innocence these boys delve into society - to evaluate the lives of the famous and notorious of the time. At the end, they commit an act of love for a bright little girl named Lunette, who boasted: "My name means Moonbeam."