When landowner Washington Faulconer frees young Nate Starbuck (the son of an antislavery preacher) from the clutches of an angry mob hostile to the Yankees, Nate is filled with gratitude and respect for the idealist who has rescued him. He decides to leave behind the life he led in Boston and enlist in the newly formed Faulconer Legion, even if it means fighting against the North that saw him born. However, Nate's is just one of the many dilemmas present in that motley Legion. Faulconer's son can't bring himself to fight, while his daughter's fiancÉ plots to take control of the family fortune. When they come together to march into battle, these men are ready to start a war ... but unprepared for the changes that will forever affect themselves first, and then the entire nation, thanks to the solemn oath they have sworn to their beloved South.