It's 1780, and war has come to Camden, South Carolina. Caroline Whitaker's father is in prison for refusing to pledge allegiance to the king, her brother, Johnny, is away fighting for the Loyalists, and she, her mother, and her sister are confined to an upstairs chamber as British colonel Lord Francis Rawdon occupies their spacious plantation house.

War is more than an inconvenience for Caroline. She has seen her best friend Kit hanged by Lord Cornwallis's troops and her father dragged off to prison. And her brother, Johnny, is injured and in need of fetching home after being court martialed and whipped for striking a British officer. This last piece of information Caroline keeps to herself as she begs and receives permission from Rawdon to bring Johnny home. But Caroline is not to make this journey alone...her black grandmother, a slave on the plantation, is to accompany her on this journey that will turn Caroline's already tumultuous world upside down and force her to question all that she holds dear.