The sound of explosions wakes Colonel Oliver Brattle, who was asleep in his Charleston, South Carolina home. It is four-thirty in the morning, yet everyone is gathered in the streets and on rooftops to watch the attack on Fort Sumter. People are excited and watch the explosions as if they were “a Fourth of July display” (1). Some even set up picnics and toast to the South. Colonel Brattle feels loyal to the South, too, but does not celebrate. He is a veteran of the Mexican-American war and knows how terrible war can be. The Black people are not celebrating, but Brattle suspects that they are hiding their hope that the war might free them.

Lily Malloy lives in Minnesota with her five siblings and their religious father, who whips them every night. Her family goes to church in April 1861, where they learn that the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter. The Union fort surrendered after one day, and President Lincoln is preparing for more fighting. Although they are far from South Carolina, Lily’s neighbors and family are distraught. Her older brother, Patrick, wants to join Minnesota’s regiment, but their dad beats him and threatens him to keep him from leaving.