Leaving his wife and children behind to run the family farm near Elkhorn Tavern, Martin Hasford embarks on a path from which he may never return. War has ripped his nation apart, and like many men, he is torn between his devotion to his family and his sense of duty. Along the way he joins up with the Fawley brothers, backwoods young men running straight from the law into the Confederate Army; Beverly Cass, once the son of plantation privilege yet now in the trenches; Guthrie Scaggs, a country judge turned army officer; Sidney Dinsmore, a no-account drunk; and Liverpool Morgan, a Welsh gambler and soldier by habit more than necessity. Together these men form a tight niche in the Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment, trudging from the Ozark foothills, headed east, determined to beat back the Yankees and end the war. From Chickamauga to Spotsylvania, from Gettysburg to Appomatox, and countless battles in between, The Barefoot Brigade is an extraordinary story that noted historian James McPherson called "One of the best Civil War novels I have read."