Cold Mountain was written by Charles Frazier, and rotates each chapter between W.P. Inman and Ada Monroe's individual stories. It begins in a Virginia military hospital, which is located in Confederate territory. W.P. Inman has recently received a wound in battle fighting for the South in the Civil War, which was supposed to be fatal. Inman does not die, and no longer agrees with the Confederates views or the war, so he decides to leave and desert the army.
Inman sets out on an epic journey to be reunited with the love of his life, Ada. Ada is currently struggling with the problem of living without her father, who died a few months prior. She has no one else to turn to, so she goes to her neighbors for help. Her neighbors then send her a girl named Ruby who will help Ada with running her farm, and the two quickly become friends.
Inman finds out quickly that his journey is not a safe one, as he barely escapes with his life on many occasions. Along the way, Inman meets a preacher named Veasey, and convinces him not to murder his wife. Veasey is exiled from his home, and Inman is reluctantly forced to let him follow on his journey. The two help a mountain dweller named Junior get a dead bull out of a stream near his house, and return to his home for dinner. Veasey and Inman are then drugged, and encounter many strange happenings. The two are then handed over to Confederate soldiers that have been looking for Inman, and are both shot.
Meanwhile, Ada's farm is now doing much better than before, with the help of her new friend Ruby. She allows a group of pilgrims to use her farm as shelter for a while, since they are on the run from Confederate soldiers. Ruby also tells Ada that her true father was a heron, and soon after this the man who raised her, Stobrod, also finds shelter at the farm. (Although we can assume that he is Ruby's father, they both claim that her true father was a heron.)
Inman awakes with a slight head wound, but Veasey has died. Inman is helped by a slave to return to his original path, but not before he returns to Junior's house and kills him. He stays the night at a woman's house who raises goats for company, and then continues on his way. Inman also kills a group of Confederate soldiers who were harassing a single mother whose husband died in the war.
Two of the men who Ada and Ruby were helping are shot by confederate soldiers for desertion, one of whom was Ruby's father. Ada and Ruby head out to bury them, and find that Stobrod is alive. Just as the two leave, Inman arrives at the farm. Informed of their location, he finally is reunited with his lover, and spends 4 days and nights in a deserted Indian settlement with her. As they leave, Inman and Stobrod are again ambushed by Confederate soldiers. Inman quickly dispatches all of the soldiers but one, who begged for mercy and looked to be no threat. As soon as he lets his guard down, however, he is shot by the soldier. Inman then dies in his lover's arms.
