In this final tenth volume of the series, the multiple strands of the story are woven towards their thundering climax. As the war careens towards its inevitable end, members of the Brannon family are spread across the South and involved in every theatre of the war. A couple of the Brannon men fight in the Shenandoah valley with Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, whilst in the Carolinas, others fight against William T. Sherman. With the coming of spring in 1865, the war reaches its climax in Virginia, North Carolina and Alabama and the family are involved when Robert E. Lee meets with U.S. Grant. Finally, among the war's last victims is the Brannon farm itself. As carpetbaggers move into the South, this prime real estate is too good to leave in the hands of staunch Confederates, but before she departs, a grieving mother must visit the grave of her first born son at the lonely crossroads of Cold Harbour.