0n his fourteenth birthday, Francis Livingstone receives a Dickert rifle, some pencils, and two boxes of paper for doing what he loves best -- drawing. He could not know then just how important these gifts would become -- not only to him and to his family, but to the entire Patriot cause.

It's the spring of 1780, and the Revolutionary War is raging. Before the war reaches Francis's South Carolina home, Francis travels straight into the heart of conflict -- to his grandmother's tavern in Camden, where he must watch his every move while he is forced to host the enemy. There he gets his first taste of what war is really like, but it won't be his last. When the fighting spreads closer to home, he discovers how he might use his gifts to protect his family and their way of life.