Arriving in St. Louis to search for his missing brother, Danny O'Lee meets a lovely but mysterious young girl named Liberty Wells who has known his brother and perhaps been his lover before they were parted by the bitter slavery question. Danny is led to Quantrill and his guerrillas, among them Frank and Jesse James, who are ravaging anti-slavery Kansas. Next, he meets and is converted to the Union cause by a beautiful black abolitionist.
Finally, after having his hairbreadth adventures, Danny O'Lee finds his beloved brother-fighting on the other side-at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, a turning point in the little known Civil War in the West.
There, a hero is born, a villain unmasked and a loved is renewed, while the Union finds a general in an obscure, cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking sphinx of a man names U.S. Grant.