The Battle of Gettysburg is over. Tens of thousands lie wounded and untended across the battlefield, and thousands are dead. Basil Biggs returns through the devastation to find his farm ruined by Confederate troops, but soon finds himself embroiled with the intrigues of Union spymaster John Babcock, who must track the beaten Confederate army as it retreats. Biggs is helped in this new adventure, to his vast surprise, by the spirit of his late mother, the famous healer Rosalie Biggs. Meanwhile, young Cornelia Hancock arrives on the battlefield as a volunteer nurse and must struggle against the awful conditions and her own sense of horror at what she witnesses. Biggs returns from his espionage work, carrying a wounded Babcock to the new field hospital on the battlefield, Camp Letterman, where Babcock comes under the care of Cornelia Hancock. Soon after, Biggs begins the monumental task of re-interring the thousands of hastily buried Union soldiers across the battlefield into the new National Cemetery. All three come to the attention of an ancient entity fascinated by humanity across the ages, strangely drawn to all three of them, and which will change their lives forever.