North & South: Book 1, North & South

With Abe Lincoln's election as President, secessionist feelings are running high. George Hazard pays a surprise visit to Orry at Mont Royal to apologize for what his fanatical sister said on his last visit. They resolve their differences and Orry finally gives his permission for Brett to marry Billy Hazard. Ashton is still out for revenge against Billy and arranges for him to be attacked on the street by thugs, though it turns out they're not very successful. She then turns to Forbes Lamotte to get the deed done. Billy and Brett's wedding seems to be just the right day to get the job done. Madeline overhears the plot and rushes to tell Orry who tells her she will stay at Mont Royal and never return to Justin. Elkanah Bent plots to run any blockade the North may try to impose on Southern ports. Orry travels to Pennsylvania to repay George his investment in the cotton mill and realizes the full extent of the hatred that now exists. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attack Fort Sumter and war is declared. George and Orry say farewell, not knowing what the future may hold for their families or their friendship.

1842, Orry Main leaves Mont Royal, the cotton plantation near Charleston (South Carolina) he's heir to, on his way to West Point for two years of officer's training. On the way he stops a runaway carriage, meets and falls in love with Madeline Fabray, who agrees to write to him. However she is moving from Atlanta with her father, Nicholas Fabray, who needs her to wed his rude neighbor, rich Resolute plantation owner Justin LaMotte. Fighting off scum trying to extort exorbitant porters wages, Orry meets fellow cadet George Hazard, son of a Pennsylvania machines manufacturer. The hazing lives up to its reputation, not in the least due to drill master Elkanah Bent. Georgian drillmaster Bent takes particular pleasure in humbling Ohio cadet Ned Fiske at sword-practice but is humiliatingly defeated by Carolinian Orry. Madeline no longer receives Orry's letters, so she become susceptible to Justin's generous courting. George and Orry decide to share their allowances with Fisk so he must not resign to run his sick dad's farm. Bent is so hell-bent on revenge that even saving his life during a demerit points-chase is cruelly 'rewarded'. Eighteen months later George introduces Orry to his Pennsylvania family, which takes to him, and their iron factory, run by dad William Hazard and eldest son Stanley. George's sister Virgilia is instantly hostile to the slave-holder, yet also attracted. Orry stops overseer Salem Jones happily whipping slave Priam, but father Tillet refuses either to sack the sadist or consider mechanizing, without which the plantation is doing badly.

To distract Orry, whose brooding about Madeline wrecks his West Point performance, George drags him to Alice Peet for laundry and 'intimate' services. After Bent arranges for Fisk to be thrown off during a hell ride on his fiery mount Satan, Bent bluffs his way out of a court-martial but the mates arrange for its president, Lieutenant Casimir De Jong, to find his 'love rival' in Alice's bed and bully him out of West Point after a promise of eternal revenge. Two years later the gang graduates. At a welcome party hosted by pa Tillet Maine, Justin scolds Madelin for openly disagreeing with separatism and arranges slave Priam to offend publicly so overseer Salem Jones is allowed to punish his insolence with branding. Orry starts a secret affair with reluctant Madeline. Bent plays his secret trump card, Ohio's US Senator Charles Edwards, being Elkanah's natural father, to get commissioned as infantry captain in president Polk's war to wrest Texas from Mexico, and sends lieutenants Orry and George on a virtual suicide reconnaissance at Churubusco. Shell-hit Orry is crippled for life, but Constance, the daughter of Colonel Patrick Flynn MD, who saved Orry from worse, becomes George's true love. After pa William Hazard's death, George resigns and joins the firm under Stanley's directorship. Madelin helps Priam run away, Justin flogs all slaves as possible accomplices. Even Orry leaves his recluse room to join the manhunt and meets Madeline again.