Traveling to Civil War-era Washington, D.C., to tend wounded soldiers and pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon, headstrong midwife Mary receives guidance from two smitten doctors and resists her mother's pleas for her to return home.
When the two young daughters of friends killed in a blizzard in 1879 vanish without a trace, former Civil War surgeon Mary Sutter launches a rescue effort that is challenged by a community that believes there is no hope.