In the spring of 1888, a young Irish-American woman, Katherine O¿Neill, is trying to cope with a hard life that has suddenly gotten harder with the death of her mother. She finds herself a surrogate mother for her two younger siblings, receiving little help from her older brother and none from her lost-cause, alcoholic father. Katherine is a bright and beautiful girl who is determined to use those assets to lift herself out of poverty.Katherine¿s American roots originate in the teeming immigrant tenements of New York City, where she was born in 1871. The trajectory of her life intersects with her miscreant uncle, Daniel O¿Connor, an equally miscreant Civil War hero, Jacob Gilhooley, a talented, but vengeful former slave, Joe Penny and the love of her life, Henry Bristow. All paths lead to southwestern Pennsylvania where scores are settled and futures are forged in one incredibly fateful week in May, 1889.