Eugenia Weatherly, who has fled White Oak plantation to live with her sister and family in Richmond Virginia, and who has lost her husband Philip and oldest son Samuel in the war, decides to take her daughters back home. They have been reduced to poverty by the war, their home has been vandalized by the Yankees, and they are left with only two of their former slaves, Otis and Lizzie, who are still at White Oak with their three children.Eugenia is a very strong woman and she is determined to salvage their old way of life out of the ruins. She has a very imperious attitude towards the former slaves and has instilled this attitude into her children. When her son Daniel comes home from the war his attitude towards the Negroes and the Yankees nearly gets him into serious trouble.
We see how clinging on to the old ways brings hatred and dissention. Eugenia is very conscious of her family's social standing and is shocked when her oldest daughter Josephine refuses to see the importance of behaving in a socially acceptable manner and instead helps Lizzie with household chores and in the vegetable garden. Her youngest daughter, Mary, is timid and longs for life to come back to normal. Eugenia hates seeing her children suffer and does all she can to win back the five years that the Yankees have stolen from them.
Otis and Lizzie are also concerned for their children and are delighted when Alexander Chandler of the Freedmen's Bureau opens a school for coloured children.
Otis has a strong faith in God and Lizzie relies heavily on her husband. They are afraid to move away as the other slaves have done because they want a better life for their children and want them to better themselves by getting an education.
Relationships are very tense all round and when the Negroes are attacked and the school is burned down by vigilantes who want things to go back to the way they were, where the slaves "knew their place" and the Yankees were still the enemy, it is largely through Jo's intervention that all out fighting does not break out again.
Jo keeps telling her family that all things are to become new and that they can no longer strive to bring back the past. They need to all work together to grow cotton again, to grow vegetables and concentrate on the things that are truly important in life.
She has been brought up to listen to the men in her family but she is disappointed in her brother's disinterest in farming and antagonism towards Mr Chandler and the former slaves. She doesn't want to hurt her mother, but she does not want to be forced into the social scene nor does she want to marry anyone she does not love just because he comes from an aristocratic family. In spite of all the heartache, the war has actually set her free to marry for love and to live the life she chooses to live. All things are indeed becoming new. It takes her a long time to realize this, even as it takes the former slaves a long time to realize that they are truly free. We see how behaviour and attitudes are ingrained in people from childhood.
Alexander Chandler and Jo become friends, much to Daniel and Mary's horror. Alexander is a committed Christian who believes that the Lord has sent him to the South to show love and forgiveness towards the enemy. He comes from a family of Quakers and only joined up because he felt that God hated slavery and wanted him to help set the slaves free. In joining up he goes against his upbringing and is estranged from his family until he chooses to never again take up arms. He is implementing a share-cropping plan where the Negroes work on the plantations as free men with a share of the profits. The local white population treat him as their enemy but Jo comes to see the true goodness of his character and he is instrumental in leading her back to faith in the Lord.
In the end we see mercy and forgiveness triumphing over hatred and bigotry.
It is a sensitively written book and one that teaches us a great deal about relationships in a family, in a community and in a country.
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