When Richmond landowner Washington Faulconer snatches young Nate Starbuck from the grip of a Yankee-hating mob, Nate is both grateful and awed by his idealistic rescuer. To repay his generosity, he enlists in the Faulconer legion to fight against his home, the North, and against his abolitionist father. When the regiment joins up, ready to march into the ferocious battle at Buff Run, the men are prepared to start a war . . . but they aren't ready...

Manassas is the first in a series of novels spanning the Civil War and describing its effects on one southern family. As local lawman Will, the eldest of the Brannon sons, decides to enlist, the family finds itself struggling with dilemmas it never had considered.