Appalled at the human toll at Gettysburg, Lincoln offers a truce to Jefferson Davis. The Union soldier carrying the offer stops at a Spotsylvania, Virginia plantation and is sent away at gunpoint. He returns and, after killing the owner and his wife, assaults their sixteen-year-old daughter Reagan. Never taught fear, Reagan quietly removes a .44 Colt revolver from her nightstand and kills the soldier. She sends her giant slave and guardian Anak for the sheriff, who sends the body of the soldier along with the offer of a truce to Davis, who accepts the offer. The war is halted. Reagan is surprised to hear that the war is over and also that within her womb life is growing. A pragmatic voice that is always with her and guiding her tells her the slaves have ways of ending a pregnancy, but she refuses the voice. Instead, she finds a man named Patrick who possesses a similar appearance as her assailant and seduces him. When she tells him she is with child he proposes and marries her. Cam is born and after him, a brother and a sister. Over time, Patrick and Reagan fall deeply in love and are happy. Cam is tutored by all at the plantation but especially by Anak, who also accompanies Cam to and from school in Spotsylvania. After the third grade the tables are turned and Cam teaches Anak what he learns in school.