At seventeen, Morgana Heirs' exotic dark beauty, inherited from her handsome father Morgan contrasts with her twenty year old sister Sarah's blonde prettiness and pale coloring, a token from their red haired mother, Lillian. Morgana's fiery and outspoken nature, also attributable to her father, conflicts with Sarah's genteel behavior, admired by all who know them. Having taken control of every aspect of her life beginning at the very hour of her traumatic birth, Morgana defiantly exhibits independence in an era when such behavior is unseemly in a woman of breeding. Spoiled by her father, Gana is an enigma to her stable and generous mother Lillian who, despite herself, leans towards her first daughter affectionately dubbed Sweet Sarah. Unaffected, Morgana entrusts her constant companion, Willow, Mulatto servant girl and daughter of household retainers, Henry and Rachel, with her confidences. Having been born only hours apart, Morgana and Willow share a kinship contradictory to expectations during the era in which they live.
Sarah's betrothed, Jonathan Baker from Greenleaf, next door, along with the Heirs sisters' older brother Drew are away serving in the Confederate Army. Drew's dedicated wife, Laura Lee, mother of his twins, lives with his family at Briars. Wil, the younger Heirs brother, a gangling red haired fifteen year old, against his father's authority and his mother's fear for his well-being, desperately wishes to join in the battle before the war is over.
Patriarch Morgan Heirs' sudden death, two days before Atlanta's fall, leaves the household stunned. When victory by Sherman's Union Army over Confederate General Hood brings about the capture and subsequent burning of Atlanta, the Heirs family is unable to evacuate to a safer locale as they must remain behind, awaiting Drew's leave from the Confederate Army for Morgan's burial. Meanwhile, Morgan's body lies in cold storage in the Heirs' nearby root cellar cave.
With Atlanta in flames, on November 15, 1864, Briars is occupied by a battle seasoned detachment of Sherman's Army led by young, inexperienced Lieutenant Shane Alexander Moss on his first field command. Entrusted to him in Sherman's own hand are written orders similar to other burning teams: They must burn every structure within five miles of wherever they are billeted before rendezvousing for Sherman's March to the Sea.
Essentially alone and unprotected in the only occupied house for miles around, the Heirs women experience numbing, gruesome tragedy after occupying Union soldiers turn on their leader. The men never realize that advantage is shifting as the Mistress of Briars, her daughters, an old Negro man, and eager young Wil plot to wage their own private war. Thus begins a life or death contest within Briars' surrounding evergreen hawthorn hedges.