Joe Little enlists in the army to preserve the Union and escape the hazards of lumbering. He quickly finds life as an infantry corporal more dangerous than that of a lumberjack. Little also learns Confederates aren't the only people trying to kill him. In a savage battle he is wounded and captured. Near death as a POW, he is exchanged and discharged, returning home to recover. War has changed him, however. He and his fiancee part when he returns to his sadly shrunken regiment for the fateful battle of Gettysburg.