Spring has sprung in Crozet, Virginia -- a time for old friends to gather and bid farewell to the doldrums of winter. Harry and her husband, Fair, are enjoying a cozy dinner with some of the town's leading citizens, including beloved University of Virginia history professor Greg "Ginger" McConnell and several members of UVA's celebrated 1959 football team. But beneath the cloak of conviviality lurks a sinister specter from the distant past that threatens...

In 1865, while helping her family keep their Virginia farm going through the end of the Civil War, twelve-year-old Cassie meets a Confederate deserter and a Yankee prisoner of war and tries to discover who has been stealing from the farm.