Inman, a young Confederate soldier, is struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, NC, where his beloved Ada awaits him. In Inman's absence, Ada befriends Ruby, who helps her keep up her late father's farm. Meanwhile, in his travels, Inman encounters a menagerie of interesting and colorful characters.

A wounded soldier is trying to return home after the Civil War to the woman he left behind. She has learned to survive and has found strength in an uncultured woman who came to help at their family farm. All will learn about hope, longing, and faith.

Wounded and disillusioned by the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved three years before. At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and to survive in a world where certainties have been swept away.

Inman, a young Confederate soldier, is struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, NC, where his beloved Ada awaits him. In Inman's absence, Ada befriends Ruby, who helps her keep up her late father's farm. Meanwhile, in his travels, Inman encounters a menagerie of interesting and colorful characters.

The impact of the Civil War on lovers. Inman is not the man he used to be, as wounded in battle he slowly makes his way home to North Carolina. His sweetheart, Ada, too has changed, no longer a flighty belle but a hard-working farm woman. Will love be the same?