A narrator born in 1921 describes growing up in a diminished, economically depredated northern region of an alternate United States after a southern victory in the Civil War, tracing family memory, social decline, and the persistent belief that the war ruined everything. The account follows his involvement with scientific efforts to study and manipulate time, culminating in an experiment that sends him into the past to observe and attempt to alter a pivotal battlefield moment. Interwoven with the time-travel plot are reflections on contingency, historical responsibility, and how large political outcomes shape ordinary lives.