When Johnny joins the Confederate Army as a drummer boy, he enters a world full of patriotism and adventure, breathtaking hot-air balloons, cannons and campfires. His job is to drum rhythms that tell soldiers what to do. But the dangers of war are all around him and when he returns to the magnolia trees and cotton blossoms of his home, Johnny and the country are forever changed.

Boys as young as nine years old joined both sides during the Civil War and many became drummer boys, giving Verla Kay and Larry Day tons of fascinating details to illuminate Johnny's story.