The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eye-like gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills. A very dramatic novel recounting the experiences of a young recruit from New York during the American Civil War. During his first battle the young soldier deserts his post and makes his way to the rear. Overcome with shame at his own cowardice he returns to his unit and eventually performs heroically. Renowned as one of the earliest examples of realism in fiction, the bloody battle scenes and the sense of panic which often ensues, make this a riveting anti-war novel.