It is 1862 and nineteen-year-old Cassie O'Brian has been traveling for three days on a train to reach a camp surrounded by a scorched wasteland. Cassie, who hastily joined the army when her fiancé died at Bull Run, is ill-equipped for her new life as a Civil War nurse. But no one cares about her past as she is quickly ushered off the train and thrown into the horrors of war. Now all Cassie has to do is survive in a harsh reality comprised of mostly men. Cassie somehow muddles through her heartbreak by nursing soldiers back to health and staying numb—the only way she thinks she can continue living. As her adventures take her into bloody battles, the black market, and to a man who will eventually heal her broken heart, Cassie becomes braver, resilient, and determined to endure in an unforgiving world. But as the war ends and she travels to Washington City to start anew, Cassie soon realizes that nothing in her past has prepared her for the challenges of being an outspoken Yankee feminist. Iron O'Brian is the historical tale of death and rebirth as a Civil War nurse journeys from the darkness of grief to the horrors of battlefield and beyond as she learns about love—and most of all—herself.