The story is set during two time periods; the very near future and also begins six years before the Civil War. The action unfolds as tension escalates between the unnamed Narrator and his nemesis, a street person called Suds. Suds blames his little dog's death on the Narrator and has sworn revenge. As the plot unfolds, the Narrator's great-great grandfather, a Virginia slave-owner named Clay Dante Logan, is questioning his internal politics. He owns slaves. The Narrator also doubts his own priorities as they pertain to the homeless that barely exist outside the front door of his clothing factory.

The War between the States is heating up and Clay knows that he must take a stand, just as the Narrator knows that no good man can stand idly by and watch innocent men, women and children die from neglect.

Clay is a graduate of West Point and an educated man. His journals are called, “Clay's Ways.” They reflect his inner thoughts as well as mirroring the events of the day. He quotes many sources, from Thoreau, Emerson and Schopenhauer, to Melville, Poe and Flaubert.

The Narrator owns a garment-manufacturing factory. The reader follows a large apparel order from inception to shipping. The internal mechanics of the clothing business are revealed within the modern story. The apparel-manufacturing narrator closely identifies with his ancestor and their paths seem to mirror one another as each wrestles with their own humanitarian sensibilities. As Suds's guerrilla tactics increase, the tensions between the North and the South grow stronger.

In the beginning of the story, Clay defends his Plantation 's (named JusticEstates) policies, but as the war drags on, it begins to take its toll and he begins to change his thinking. Clay's wife has died and he immerses himself in the upcoming conflict, preferring the lunacy of war to the emotional pain he wishes to avoid.

On the day the Narrator is shipping one of the largest orders of his professional career, Suds and his band of marauders attack the plant, which employs about thirty-five people. The Narrator is forced into action, shooting and killing two of Suds's cohorts. Suds is critically injured. He crawls out of the factory and into the homeless camp run by a three hundred plus pound black woman named Mama Pajama.

Mama has many powerful political allies. She is a passionate, imposing woman. Suds dies the following day and Mama swears vengeance, setting into motion the Second American Civil War.

Promises of free food and clothing draw a crowd of 10,000 people. Mama's Army becomes the first flank of the People's Army. This homeless army is joined by a band of stoned-out street junkies, led by a three-time loser named Ari the Aryan. Ari is avenging his dead girlfriend Lindy, a recent victim of a drug overdose. The streets are overrun with a deadly combination of unusually powerful heroin. Ari is stoned on this Mexican Brown and feels he has nothing left to live for. Ari (a Vietnam Vet, with a deadly history) becomes a killing machine. He leads the Kamikaze Homeless Brigade into battle against the National Guard, Federal soldiers and tactical police.

Single-handed, Ari kills a dozen of the National guardsmen who have been firing on the unarmed homeless. Later, he slits the throat of Deputy Police Chief, Alden Jameson, a megalomaniac killer. Grant Terry, Channel 13 News, covers from above the action. Terry is a foxhole style reporter who made his name in the trenches of Vietnam . Unwittingly, after stopping Jameson's carnage, Ari becomes a hero, a national figure and media celebrity.

A wealthy socialite and communications giant named Willa Wharton Phillips III leads the third flank of the homeless army into battle against the Federal forces. Willa is the keynote speaker at the Biltmore Hotel, where many of her friends are gathered for a weekend of Gray Panther activities. Willa leads her aged Gray Panther comrades against the federal soldiers, realizing her true political destiny.

In effect, the gray poncho-clad homeless, the rag-tag junkie army and the Gray Panthers battling against the blue tactical police and the National Guard, become the Second American Civil War. Like the Battle of Gettysburg, the Army attacks in three flanks and like Gettysburg the casualty list is severe. Over three thousand homeless are killed. It is the Blue vs. the Gray. The battle occurs in the rain, in Pershing Park , across from the Biltmore Hotel.

As the conflict between the homeless and the Federal soldiers rages, Clay writes of his own inner battles. He fights at Gettysburg alongside one of his sons. He finds his God and buries a son. He visits Dante's Inferno and learns the true nature of God's will. He agonizes over his wife's death and tends to another son who is seriously injured in the war.

By the end of the Civil War, Clay has changed his politics, makes his peace with God and comes to an understanding with his former slaves. Clay has a vision in a cave where he begins to bury his past and accept his future. After the war, Clay marries again, raising a second family.

Ari and the Narrator go to Washington , DC where they meet the President, a humane man who is still searching for his political identity. President Andrew Wendell Jackson has been instinctively seeking his own inner compass and after a massive demonstration on the Washington Common, he realizes his political destiny, becoming the “People's President.”

Together, Ari and the President conceive of a grassroots program called “Common Cents.” By the end of the novel, programs of assistance and rehabilitation, both from the private sector and Federal funding are available to every homeless and indigent man, woman or child who need it.

The story ends with Clay an old man looking back on his life. He reminisces about the Civil War, peacetime, child rearing, his two marriages, the death of children and the nature of man in general.