During a extended, hot July in 1863, the worst type of race riots the United States has ever noticed erupt in New York City. Earlier that calendar year, desperate for even more Union soldiers, Leader Abraham Lincoln instituted a draft-a draft that would allow the wealthy to escape portion in the army by having to pay a $300 waiver, more than a year’s income for the latest immigrant Irish. And on July 11, as the initial drawing takes place in Lower Manhattan, the town of New York explodes in rage and fire. Stores are looted, structures set on fire, and black Us citizens are attacked, beaten, and murdered. The police cannot hold out against the rioters, and finally, battle-hardened troops are ordered back again in the fields of Gettysburg to place down the insurrection, that they do-brutally.

Fifteen-year-old Claire, the beloved daughter of the dark father and Irish mom, finds herself torn between your two warring sides. Faced with the breakdown of the city-the home-she provides cherished, Claire must uncover the power and resilience to address the new world in which she discovers herself, and to begin the hard trip of remaking herself and her identification.