A Matter of Conscience, is the story of a young man's journey through the most turbulent years this country has ever experienced. Growing up on the upper Cumberland River in south central Kentucky in the mid nineteenth century, Martin, accepted slavery as a normal part of life. Although the river was somewhat of a dividing line between large Tennessee plantation farmers who owned slaves, and Kentucky farmers who had no need for slaves on their small farms across the river, arguments often ended in bloodshed as hot headed men took the law into their own hands and spoke with a gun and a knife. Martin, a man of peace, only wished to be left alone to raise his growing family, but fate intervened and he was thrust headlong into the bubbling brew that became know as the Civil War.