My summary of the plot is unnecessary thanks to a detailed review by Mr. Herman Gay, an English and Journalism instructor in the Maryland Public Schools. Mr. Gay wrote:

"A Rose at Bull Run gives us another voice from the Civil War era....Through the voice of the fifteen-year-old Julia,...we move among the soldiers, and we see their wounds and feel their pain. We also see the devastating effects of war; powerfully in fact, through the eyes of a naïve, self–centered young woman. We sample the pain of growing up in a time when for Julia the stigma of spinsterhood loomed larger than even the war. From the opening chapter, when Julia meets the dying soldier, through after–battle struggles and medical assistance efforts, we are jolted by the realities of war. Best of all, Sappéy delivers to us a heroine who sees pain, suffering, cowardice and bravery on parade. One thing is certain about A Rose at Bull Run: we realistically travel with Julia, who is first a spectator and later an unlikely participant in one of America’s most gruesome dramas performed live on battlefields that many Americans called their backyards, their farms, their neighborhoods, and their hometowns. Maureen Stack Sappéy’s A Rose at Bull Run is definitely on my list of recommended novels for middle and high school students."