Prior to the 1860s, the armies of most major countries followed the Napoleonic tactics of war; their rifles were smooth barreled muskets that were inaccurate at more than 100 yards; and their cannons were similarly inaccurate. Medicine had only slightly changed in hundreds of years; the existence of bacteria and the cause of disease were not known; sanitation was not practiced and its benefits were unknown or even ridiculed; anesthesia had only recently been discovered; and surgery was very risky with often deadly results. That all changed with the improvements in weaponry that resulted in massive increases in casualties during the Civil War, which was brought about by Southern States' attempt to secede from the Union so as to preserve the abominable institution of slavery. In this novel, a young doctor experiences the horrors of the Civil War with the emergence of modern warfare, and the entry of modern medicine. For more than a century and a half since the end of that War, for the most part Southerners have almost reverently referred to the Civil War as "The Lost Cause", and to its military leaders [Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, etc.] as heroes. The author leaves it up to the reader to decide whether they should be remembered as valiant heroes or traitors to the United States. What is certain is that their actions led to the devastation of the South and a legacy of bigotry and oppression of blacks for far more than a century.