1862: In New York, Theodorus Hubbard is the engineer for a revolutionary new "fighting machine" called the Monitor, and eager to become a man of means...so eager, a bribe compromises his integrity. In Norfolk, Catherine Claiborne faces her husband's impending hanging for piracy, the death of their baby daughter, and the bitter realities of enemy occupation.
In Richmond, Lt. Lomax Minter is ordered to find a spy who threatens the South's ultimate weapon: a tremendous ironclad named Virginia, rebuilt from a sunken wreck in a race against time. While the aging Dr. Alphaeus Steele witnesses the horrors that are the aftermath of glory; and gun-captain Calpurnius Hanks, escaped slave, struggles with the demons of his past and the twin snakes of "freedom."