An escaped slave boy joins the Pennsylvania 102nd Volunteers with
his dog named Jack and brings with him a tremendous fear of confronting his former captors yet an all-encompassing desire to take vengeance on them and free his mother and sister back at his former plantation.

Jed mistrusts white people yet is drawn to two members of his company - a hardened veteran who tries to use Jed's bitterness to make him a soldier and a chaplain who is against the war.  The war for Jed's soul intensifies when Jed must face the regiment led by his former master, now a general in the confederate army.