Right at the moment Nate Starbuck begins to doubt his own courage, the Faulconer Legion is spitefully stripped from him and he is given command of the Yellowlegs – a battalion of cowards, malingerers, stragglers, skulkers and convicts led by cowards and bullies. In order to restore the honour of the Special Battalion, Starbuck pits himself and his Yellowlegs against the Union army at Sharpsburg in one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. But not all his enemies are northerners: among his own ranks are white demons, bad as they come, whose rifles, revolvers and resentments are aimed at Starbuck's back.