From East Tennessee, the Scott family faces Civil War conflicts. One brother and his son decide to fight for the Southern Cause, while four other brothers escape into Kentucky to join the Union Army, fighting against slavery and preserving the Union. The Scott family adheres to the Presbyterian faith as Covenanters, embracing Native American perspectives, combining those values to provide guidance through a most challenging time. The family members who remain in East Tennessee are subjected to suffering from the plundering bushwhackers who see the Scott family allegiance to the Union as cause for punishment. That retribution also applies to slaves with whom the Scotts live as farmers, loggers and millers, all working the land of others.

How THE SCOTT BOYS approach the decision to fight, how they react during events, and how they face the fears and the mental challenges of war are presented with the realization that none of us knows for certain what those feelings were like in 1860. Follow each brother through the war during battle, in prison, marching, and dealing with the harshness of exposure to the weather. Many of the characters portrayed are real life men and women. The locations are all actual.