The Confederacy has taken her husband off to the battlefield and now Kentuckian SARAH ANDERS (Patricia Clarkson) buries her daughter, only to have Yankee sympathizers unearth the grave.

Her PREACHER (Kris Kristofferson) warns her not to take the body home, but she won't be dissuaded. Soon after Sarah and her YOUNG SON (Will Lucas) return to their farm with the body, a small Union patrol arrives led by CAPTAIN ABSTON (Chris Cooper).

He has orders to take Sarah's food and livestock to feed Yankee soldiers, but when an accident forces the men to stay, Abston and Sarah reluctantly find they have more in common than they want to admit. In a desperate and violent struggle to survive, she and her son face the troubling prospect that war has no victors, only victims.