Across Five Aprils is a finely wrought piece of prose fiction. The plot parallels the course of the Civil War, beginning in April 1861, when Fort Sumter is attacked, and reaching to the "saddest and most cruel April of the five," when Lincoln is assassinated in 1865. Set on the Creighton farm and its close environs in southern Illinois, the action mostly consists of Jethro's moral and emotional development, leaving the distant battles to be described through the letters of absent characters.

Although the story is told in the third person, Hunt reveals all the action through Jethro's eyes, a technique known as limited omniscient narration.

The narration reflects subtle changes that occur in Jethro's personality as he matures from a child to a thoughtful young man.

Hunt's outstanding use of language and symbolism merits attention. The author borrows some of Whitman's symbols from "When Lilacs Last in...