It is the eve of the Civil War, and the delicate fabric of a young nation threatens to tear apart as volatile issues divide its people. James and Jeffrey Birmingham, brothers, now find themselves and their families on opposing sides of a great and terrible conflict. James is a wealthy Bostonian with a son who is a passionate and outspoken abolitionist, and a daughter who must hide her identity as the writer of controversial newspaper articles. Jeffrey, who lives on a South Carolina plantation, has a son who joins the Mormon Church, then leaves home after a failed attempt to free his family's slaves. Jeffrey's cowardly younger son ruthlessly preys on the weak; and his young daughter despises her family's beliefs finding more kinship with the slaves than with her own flesh and blood. Caught in the middle are the slaves, who, along with immigrant families, are desperate to find their place in a country that is rapidly drawing its battle lines. From the bustling streets of Boston to the lush plantation fields of the South, from the drudgery of camp life to the terrors of the battlefield, millions of lives are about to be irrevocably changed... A House Divided, volume one of the epic series Faith of Our Fathers, is one of the most ambitious novels in LDS publishing history. Chronicled in this remarkable book are the lives of compelling characters in the midst of astounding events set forth and guided by the merciful hand of our Heavenly Father.