Brief synopsis of Men Without Hate The novel tells the story of two men, inextricably linked by family and irrevocably changed by war. It opens in 1863, on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, where twenty-three year old Lewis Raines’ battery is preparing to support Pickett’s Charge. The second half of the novel takes us eighty-two years later to Manila, where Hilton Raines (Lewis’ grandson) and his howitzer unit, The Guns of Dixie, are involved in the fight to retake that city from the Japanese. Lewis’ battle is lost, while Hilton’s is won. Their lives afterwards are both different as well. Though torn by both anger, and love, Lewis manages to get on with his and live out his days. Hilton comes home after the war, sick with malaria and battle fatigue, and unable to cope with the new world he finds, ends up taking his own life.