Cohen and his rival Goldberg enlist in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Goldberg receives a lieutenant’s commission while Cohen becomes a sergeant.
Broken by grief after his mother's death, Olaf becomes a wanderer. He is treated cruelly until he is given a meal by a woman at the homestead where she lives with her husband and baby.
Tom Chatterton is called a coward because he will not enlist in the Home Guard during the Civil War -- his mother is dying and he does not wish to leave while she is still alive.
As James Abbott, Frank Arthur and Martin Wynne, college chums, are bidding farewell to one another at the commencement ball, James discovers that May Scott, whom he loves, favors Frank.