James Osterhaus draws readers into the simple life of Joe Thompson, who is struggling to know what happened to him twenty years before, during the Civil War. When he tries to remember, the shadows descend and cloud out his memories.
The story opens with a dream that has terrified him since the war--some unnamed battlefield where he is crawling through the smoking underbrush, trying not to get shot. After his wife has finally had enough of his abuse, she kicks him out of their house along Difficult Run, and he moves to Alexandria, where a kindly uncle takes him in.
He then begins his quest to find out just what happened to himself and his three friends. As he is drawn into the jaws of the terrible conflict, the more disturbing the revelations become. He has a talisman, actually half a carving of an oak tree, that he carries everywhere around his neck on a chain. But he can't remember where it came from or what it symbolizes. It seems to have some strange power over him.
He interviews several generals and a few veterans to get some perspective on the war and jog his memory. Finally, he learns the awful truth of what had happened and how he was responsible.
At last, he comes to peace on the banks of Difficult Run when he is able to fashion two tombstones for his brother and his girlfriend after he has learned of their fate and the role he played in their lives and deaths.
