They lived on coffee and "segars," whiskey when they could get it, shouldered their way to the front armed with pencils instead of rifles. Hard-bitten generals hated them, branding them spies and parasites. Glory-seeking underlings pandered to them, promoting their own advancement. The anxious folks back home devoured their every word and clamored for more.

Civil War journalists were a breed of their own. Freewheeling opportunists and adventurers, they carved their reputations from the terror and devastation of a nation bent on self-destruction. With determination and grit, they bullied their way into places decent folks had gladly fled, hardening their hearts against the carnage and bloodshed to get the story and to get it first.

Correspondent Nick Canfield waded into the turmoil as a refugee moving against the tide. He took cold comfort from the chaos of war, the battlefield's smoke and confusion obscuring his personal struggle, a conscience at odds with itself. Like the nation, he too was torn apart by an unresolved past and now faced an uncertain future. And as the conflict played out, he must make a final reckoning -- in a world changed forever.