Surrection traces the moral evolution of Jabez Cooper, a young man from western Missouri, who is swept by circumstances beyond his control into the violent border war in the late 1850s between Missouri "border ruffians" and Kansas abolitionists. Strongly influenced by his father, he supports the ruffians. Later, during the Civil War, he joins a pro-Confederate guerrilla gang in Missouri along with his friends Frank and Jesse James. Jabez is torn...