Carrigan LeRoy is tired of the war. He's seen far too many torn bodies filled with seeping wounds, and shattered minds. The war is winding down, and he is weary of the endless cutting, sewing, and hollow promises of life, only to see another soldier buried. It was at just this moment a man no older than twenty was laid upon his operating table and Carrigan's world changed forever.

A band of renegades are waiting for a letter carried by a dead man. They have high hopes of riches, if they can procure one very important Northerner. The Confederates know that the war is lost, and their only hope is to secure one element of leverage that could help force terms with the Union. The problem? The South has put their hopes in the hands of a band of slave hunters, and those men are not quite the cream of the crop.

Carrigan and his companions' race against time to foil a plot that could change the course of history, but what can two Union surgeons and one cartographer do? Don't underestimate the cunning of two old sawbones and a mapper!