Sarny opens on a plantation where Sarny is a slave. She marries and has two children, but her husband Martin is worked to death, and later her children Tyler and Delie are taken from her and sold to help pay off her owner's gambling debts. The first part of the novel is devoted to her search for her children.

This search takes her south and southwest, and as she travels she puts her literacy to use by searching papers at a slave dealer's to discover who has purchased her children and where they have been taken.

They witness the terrible slaughter of the war. Sarny's companion Lucy is at first thrilled to see white men killing each other: "They all white, ain't they? I hope they all kill each other. Wouldn't bother me if every damn one of them died." After witnessing men blown to pieces, others with...