Spying for the Confederacy, Jean-Pierre Mercier, a bilingual McGill student, survives the Battle of Baltimore to join the correspondents who have flocked to Washington to report on the forthcoming War Between the States. A balloon ride brings him to Bull Run. Appalled by the carnage among the green troops, he follows a Confederate deserter into the hills of Kentucky where he meets the young Protestant girl who will later become his wife. Resuming his mission, he spys on the Union troops at Mill Run and Shiloh, then travels down the Mississippi to New Orleans and then across the Southern States by train. Captured at Chancellorsville, he is sent to the Federal prison at Point Lookout. Once he is free, he heads for home, riding to New York with a trainload of draft protestors. The man who returns to Montreal, hardened by travel, war, and the constant need to live by his wits, is far different from the boy who left.