1865 The American Civil War is ending Eighteen years after the famine ship Star of the Sea docked at New York, the daughter of two of her passengers sets out from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on a walk across a devastated America Eliza Duane Mooney is searching for a young boy she has not seen in four years, one of the hundred thousand children drawn into the war His fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary It's a walk that will have consequences for many seemingly unconnected survivors