With his father killed in the battle of Shiloh and four younger children still at home to support, and too young by one year to join the Union Army, fourteen-year-old Gideon Tell becomes apprentice photographer to fast-talking, clever and well-read Charles Rintree. Rintree is headed to infiltrate enemy lines at Vicksburg, to take photographs of positions and armaments, reckoning to get them to General Grant, not for outright cash, but for the fame and subsequent money that fame will bring. Vicksburg has been blocking Union supply lines in the Mississippi. Aboard Empress, Grant's supply steamer, Gideon and Rintree are caught between a double line of fire. The captain has taken civilian passengers aboard against the arguments of Union troop commander Lieutenant Stephen Kane. With the steamer under attack, Rintree and Gideon bravely remain on deck taking pictures of the shore battlements. Later, seeing the photographs and realizing that photographic surveillance is the way of the future, Kane conspires with Rintree to place him and Gideon inside the city of Vicksburg-their cover story to be that they are refugees desiring to return to the South; Rintree a surgeon, and Gideon his son with an interest in the new science of photography chronicling his father's work. The Millers, newspaper owners with Union sympathies, will be their "contacts." Rintree quickly becomes a surprisingly good fulltime civilian surgeon. Vicksburg's society loves him. Gideon realizes that it is up to him to take the pictures. Under the guise of a newspaper photographer creating an image of Vicksburg for Miller's newspaper, Gideon may go almost anywhere and photograph freely "on assignment." His objective is thepanoramic view from atop the courthouse. Slowly, Gideon reassesses Rintree as a liar, forger and perhaps wheeler-dealer angling to sell the photographs to the highest bidder. When Kane arrives incognito (switching identity with a recently dead war correspondent and doing a fine impression of him) they share their suspicions of Rintree being a double spy. It becomes imperative to get Gideon and his prints to General Grant. A prisoner/troop train out of Vicksburg is the answer. What follows is a thrilling, action-packed no-holds barred, identities revealing great train escape. The novel is seasoned with humor, seeds of romance, masked identities and great insight into character development and relationships. A bonus is actual photographs of Vicksburg and historical personages who are woven into the story.