American Janus* is the story of a North Carolina Confederate veteran and his family at the dawn of the 20th century. While looking forward to the promise of the future, Harper Clayton can never truly slip his inescapable past as a soldier in the American Civil War and Freedman Bureau agent during Southern Reconstruction. *Janus-- the Roman god of new beginnings and transitions. Janus is portrayed as having two faces, one looking to the future and one the past.