Colonel Thomas Rose is one of more than 1000 officers held in the notorious Libby Prison of Richmond, Va., known for its stark white walls, numbing conditions and rats.

The frontlines of the Civil War lie hundreds of miles from Vermont, but Confederate Bennett Young plans to bring the war to the North. He’ll lead a group of raiders into the town of St. Albans to rob its banks and burn its buildings then make a run for Canada. But a local posse has other plans.

If the POWs of Libby Prison faced "Rat Hell," you could call what Wallace Turnage endured "snake hell." Turnage was born a slave and by the time we pick up the story from the recently rediscovered autobiography he'd already made multiple escape attempts—and been brutally beaten for them.

Enslaved aboard the Confederate ship the CSS Planter, Robert Smalls has learned the skills of a naval captain.

Dr. John Doy is a guide on the Underground Railroad attempting to lead a group of men, women, and children to safety in Canada. When their party is intercepted by a notorious slave catcher, Doy is thrown into a Missouri jail. All appears to be lost until his friends hatch a bold plot to free him.

Pauline Cushman is a Union war widow, a stage actress and a spy.