Two years have passed since the awful assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the close of the Civil War. The conspirators convicted of plotting the assassination are either dead or locked safely away in prison. The members of the McDaniel family have settled into a busy and comfortable life in the months following the military trial of the conspirators. Then come the news that John Surratt, alleged participant in the murder plot against the President, has been captured in faraway Egypt and will be returned to Washington to stand trial for his deeds. Suddenly the intervening months are as nothing and the family must again consider the scars of the war years.