With New Orleans as their destination, Cheney Duvall and her nurse, Shiloh Irons, leave behind the glittering lights of New York City and travel first to Charleston, South Carolina, intending to stay for only a short time. But the purpose of their stop immediately draws them into the plight of this war-torn Southern city, in the painful throes of Reconstruction and carpetbagger policies after the Civil War.

Cheney Duvall graduates from medical school just after the Civil War, facing the severe prejudice against women doctors and setting sail on a three month voyage to care for one hundred marriageable women.