The Jackal's Mistress

Set in the fall of 1864, Chris Bohjalian’s The Jackal’s Mistress (2025) is historical fiction with romantic elements that occurs during General Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign of the American Civil War between the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy. Protagonist Libby Steadman, a Southern woman living in Berryville, Virginia, harbors wounded Union Captain Jonathan Weybridge in her home. Threatened by severe penalties for aiding the enemy, Libby commits to saving Weybridge’s life despite endangering her own household. Highlighting the themes of Civilian Resilience Under Military Authority, Moral Decisions Amid Societal Collapse, and Humanizing the Enemy Through Shared Vulnerability, The Jackal’s Mistress looks at the war’s impact on relationships and explores the idea of compassion across enemy lines.

This guide refers to the 2025 edition published by Doubleday.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, illness, death, racism, sexual violence, and gender discrimination.

Plot Summary

Libby Steadman, 24, attempts to fend off a man who invades her home in Berryville, Virginia, in September of 1864. She believes that the man, intent on raping her, is probably a deserter from the Confederacy, perhaps with General Jubal Early’s army or John Mosby’s guerrilla-like group of raiders. Libby’s employee, Joseph, kills the man with a shovel. Libby takes the man’s Colt revolver, glad to have a weapon.

Her part of the Shenandoah Valley is rural; it is 20 miles southwest of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, but close enough to Winchester, Virginia, to hear the sounds of battle. The property, left to her husband, Peter, by his deceased father, includes a house, a small farm with cabins and outbuildings, and a flour mill. A Southerner from Charlottesville, Libby has not heard from Peter, a Confederate captain, since shortly after he was taken prisoner at Gettysburg over a year before. She tends to the farm and mill with help from Joseph and Joseph’s wife, Sally, formerly enslaved people whom Peter freed when his father died. Libby also serves as a guardian for her niece, 12-year-old Jubilee.

Nearby, a Union captain, Jonathan Weybridge, writes a letter to his wife, Emily. Weybridge leads a group of fellow Vermonters as part of General Sheridan’s campaign in the Shenandoah to plunder and destroy farmland, making it harder for Confederate troops to procure grain. At a skirmish at the Opequan River, Weybridge expects infantry, but cannons and canister fire surprise him. He loses two fingers on his left hand and his right leg below the thigh. When the army moves on, they leave Weybridge with a meager number of opium pills in an abandoned house, expecting him to die. He calls for help as he battles infection.

Sally, collecting beebalm at the abandoned property, hears Weybridge’s calls. That night, Libby and Joseph rescue Weybridge, bringing him back to the farmhouse. The punishment for helping an enemy soldier is hanging or imprisonment. Libby, however, cannot allow the man to die alone; she hides him in her own bedroom. She tells herself, Joseph, Sally, and local physician Doc Norton (whom she’s asked for help) that she would want the same for Peter from a Northern woman. To herself, she wonders if the Union officers at the Harper’s Ferry garrison might help her find Peter.

Jubilee, an outspoken young girl, calls Weybridge “Jackal” and insists he cannot be trusted, but she is also fascinated by the man. Sally attempts to heal his infection with home cures, but Libby knows medicine is needed. She takes evidence of Weybridge’s existence—two letters she finds in his uniform—and makes a risky trek to Harper’s Ferry with Joseph for medical supplies. On the way, two men who claim to be soldiers try to “commandeer” Joseph for Early’s army. Libby shoots them. She and Joseph hide the bodies in the woods, stash the men’s Colt revolvers and carbine rifle off the road to pick up later, and continue to Harper’s Ferry.

After convincing Union officers that Weybridge is alive but cannot be moved, Libby acquires the supplies Doc Norton wanted, along with ample whiskey to bribe Norton into secrecy. Libby and Joseph return home, collecting the weapons on the way. Doc Norton enjoys his whiskey, keeps Weybridge a secret, and treats the infection. Libby and Weybridge begin to sit up late at night over whiskey after the others retire, discussing the war and life before it. Libby keeps her murders and guns a secret.

A Confederate lieutenant, Morgan, visits to ask about an abandoned Union soldier in the area. Jubilee lies and covers for Weybridge; Morgan leaves. Then, another Confederate lieutenant, Sears, arrives and insists on searching the house and mill for a supposed Union captain left behind. Libby dismisses this as a rumor but gladly shows Sears every room. She demands he stay at the doorway of her bedroom, however, out of propriety. Weybridge hides behind the door; Sears leaves.

Morgan returns. Weybridge hides in the woods, and Sally hides his things. Morgan finds nothing and leaves, disgruntled. Weybridge tells Libby he must leave to stop endangering them all. Having grown emotionally close to him, Libby is upset and tells him about her murders and weapons. She allows him to embrace her.

The next morning, as her usual authoritative self, Libby announces that Weybridge has decided to leave. Jubilee is upset, having grown to like the Jackal. Joseph offers to build a coffin to hide him in for the trip to Harper’s Ferry.

The plan is ready, but an enslaved man named Clark, from Morgan’s uncle’s farm, runs to Libby’s farm in the night. He tells Joseph and Sally that Morgan is coming to raid the farm. Libby tells Weybridge she wants to take a stand and use the weapons against Morgan. Weybridge creates a quick plan: Sally and Jubilee will hide in the mill with one Colt, Joseph will stay at his house on the property with another, and Weybridge and Libby will try to take out Morgan and his rangers from the farmhouse with the remaining Colts and the carbine.

Two of Morgan’s men, however, sneak in through the back of the house. Weybridge and Libby shoot them, but two others accost Libby from the front of the house. Taken prisoner by Morgan, Libby and Weybridge watch as Joseph and one of Morgan’s men leave to search for Sally and Jubilee. Morgan details how he will hang all of them but Jubilee. Sally shoots the men searching for her, then steals close enough to shoot and kill Morgan. The last ranger shoots Sally, inflicting a fatal wound, before Joseph kills him.

Joseph grieves as they bury Sally. At dawn, Joseph, Jubilee, and Libby leave with Weybridge in the coffin. From a hill above the property, they see Confederate cavalrymen burn the farm and mill before they leave for Harper’s Ferry. There, Jubilee sees the firehouse where John Brown’s uprising occurred. Libby tells her they both must begin to speak honestly about the sin of enslavement and the repercussions of war.

Weybridge discovers that Emily died in an accident. In shock, he is glad for Libby’s presence. That night, in a hotel in Harper’s Ferry, Libby visits Weybridge and tells him neither of them deserves to be lonely that night; they have sex and spend the night together. In the morning, Weybridge says he wants to bring Libby and Jubilee home to Vermont. At breakfast, though, Libby tells him she learned that Peter is alive, and the Union officer will arrange his release in return for Libby’s saving Weybridge.

The Epilogue, from the point of view of Jubilee, aged in her eighties, recounts the ensuing years. A pregnant Libby, Peter, and Jubilee went to Vermont with Weybridge and stayed until the summer of 1865, a few months after the birth of Libby’s son. Jubilee suspects but never confirms that the baby, named Jack, was actually Weybridge’s. Commenting on a gathering of elderly former Confederate soldiers she witnessed in 1932, Jubilee disparages the racist ideals and hollow honor they upheld in the long, violent war.