This story opens on St. Helena Island in July 1863. It is fiction but the battle and prison experiences of Lieutenant Timothy Bradford are based on those of Captain V. B. Chamberlain of the Seventh Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. The Seventh Connecticut was part of an expeditionary force which was sent to South Carolina in October 1861 to occupy the islands along the coast and establish a base for military operations against the city of Charleston. Union troops occupied the town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island and made their headquarters and their main base of supplies on the Island of Hilton Head. The first charge on Fort Wagner (called Battery Wagner by the Confederates) is described in this book. Wagner was probably the strongest earthwork in the history of modern warfare. A second charge on Wagner was mounted just one week after the first. This second attack was repulsed. Wagner was finally reduced by siege and occupied by Union troops in September 1863. - Summary by The Author