On June 3, 1863, nineteen-year-old Confederate lieutenant John Dooley prepared to march on Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Thomas Galway, a seventeen-year-old corporal in the Union army, waited for the battle to begin.

Drawing on the written accounts of these young soldiers, Murphy traces the circumstances leading to the dramatic battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s historic address at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.