Prior to the American Civil War, photography and embalming the dead were newly invented arts and sciences.

On the autism spectrum, Osborn Roche is a well-respected battlefield and postmortem photographer during the civil war. He and his nephew Ray travel with the Union army photographing battlefields and creating portraits for the soldiers. When Osborn meets Lou, a young woman dressed as a man to work as an embalmer for the Union, He soon sees that she is also on the autism spectrum, and they quickly become friends. Lou works with her father, Henry. Common for the time, Henry believes his daughter should never marry or have children due to her condition. When their friendship blossoms into courtship, Lou’s father threatens to take her away. Osborn and Lou must travel west to seek a place where they should never be found in this quirky, funny, and sometimes dark, civil war era romance.