Even as the Civil War winds down, Simon Boudlin is finally conscripted into the Confederate Army. Luckily, his talent with a fiddle gets him a position in a regimental band. On the eve of the surrender, Simon meets the lovely Doris Mary Dillon, an Irish governess to a Union colonel's daughter. Although they are later separated, Simon cannot forget Doris, and in this novel by the author of the National Book Award finalist News of the World, he vows that someday he will find her again.