Ellen Schuyler and Doan Brady are passionately in love, but it’s 1862 and everything has to be put on hold while Yankee and Rebel fight savagely, with no regard for the personal lives of the soldiers.  

Ellen, who has been forced by her father’s decision to stay in Mexico City, expects Doan to help her with the Schuyler wagon train and all the difficulty of traveling up the trail known as the Jornado del muerto (Journey of death), but he cannot because his obligation to the man who brought him up has forced him into the Rebel army.

And, with a skeleton army guarding settlers, Indians burst out of their reservations to burn, pillage and rape.  Ellen is kidnapped by a band of Hostiles and Doan, out of his mind with fear for her, joins his Rebels to a Yankee detachment and together they rescue the hostages.

The war drags on another three years, but Ellen and Doan manage to get married between expeditions he makes as a “Galvanized Yankee”.