In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania during June 1861, twelve year old Jed Blanchard beats on a drum outside the store that his brother works at. Since his parent's deaths, his older brother, Gideon, has been running the family mercantile store. When President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion of the Confederate States, Jed made up his mind to join the Union Army with Gideon. The Union Army needed drummer boys like him. Their lives will never be the same as they fight and suffer through one fierce battle after another. On one of those battlefields, Jed will lose his way and find out compassion was not dead in the world when he needed it the most. The brothers and their friends will find love and happiness where they least expect it, and those that survive vow to heal the wounds caused by total war in their own way.