In 1863, Magdalys and her friends from the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City are on their way south to find Magdaly’s brother, Montez, who has been injured in battle. It is thought that Montez is in New Orleans.

The civil war is raging as the Dactyl Hill Squad fly south on pterodactyls from New York City through Tennessee and on to New Orleans in Louisiana. Along the way they are shot at, meet Generals Sheridan and Grant, see the destruction of war up close, learn there are other dinotalkers on both sides of the war- some better than Magdalys, and feel the pressure of war. “Sometimes what you love and what you have to do don’t get along.” (122) Magdalys feels she should stay and help General Sheridan form an air corp with her dactyls, but she needs to find her injured brother, too. How can such pressure be placed on a twelve year old?

At Chickamauga the battle does not go well for the Union forces. General Sheridan asks Magdalys to fly to New Orleans to tell General Grant about their situation. Even though this is where Magdalys wants to go, the war will not make it an easy flight. They run into Confederate flyers. Magdalys may be the heroine of this story, but that does not mean she and her friends get out of this unscathed.

The children are hardened by war, needing to act as adults, and yet they are still children. Oh, how their lives have been changed forever in so short a time.

Real people, places, and events are expertly mixed with fictional people, events, and dinosaurs to make this one high flying tale.