She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. A farmer's faithful wife, she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, Ash Thompson becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause. But why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home?