1864: As Sherman's army marches toward Atlanta, a cotton mill commandeered by the Confederacy lies in its path. Inside the mill, Clara Douglas weaves cloth and watches over her sister Kitty, waiting for the day her fiancé returns from the West.

When Sherman's troops destroy the mill, Clara's plans to start a new life in Nebraska are threatened. The millworkers are branded as traitors and exiled to a desolate refugee prison hundreds of miles from home. Clara and Kitty hold no sympathy for the Confederacy; nevertheless, they must leave behind everything they've ever known.

Clara clings to hope while grappling with doubts about her fiancé's ambitions and the unsettling truths surrounding his absence. As the days pass, the sisters find themselves thrust onto the foreign streets of Cincinnati, a city teeming with uncertainty and strife. She must summon reserves of courage, ingenuity, and strength she didn't know she had if they are to survive in an unfamiliar, unwelcoming land.