A soldier wounded in the Civil War, Inman begins the journey home to Cold Mountain, and to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began. As he attempts to make his way across the mountains, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her once-wealthy father left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive.

This is the interweaving story of four men. On the Union side, Joshua Chamberlain and Winfield Scott Hancock both became heroes at Gettysburg. For the Confederacy, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, a failure at the Virginia Miltiary Academy, and Robert E. Lee, one of the greatest leaders of all time.

On June 15, 1863, Robert Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia slips across the Potomac to begin the invasion of the North. His army is 70,000 strong but mostly unpaid and self-equipped. It has won nearly every battle it has fought. Lee knows a letter has been written, a letter offering peace.

A history of the American Civil War starting with an account of the years preceding it and its causes. It discusses slavery, the two sides of the war, the international dimension, the position and role of the free blacks and slaves, the end of the war and reconstruction.

A brutal and brilliant novel set in the American Civil War.