North & South: Book 1, North & South

- Season 1

(1985)

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 ...

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 ...

1848, Orry plucks run-away slave Priam from the train Madelin suggested to flee on, George uses their friendship to let him escape. Three weeks later, Orry is best man when George weds Constance in Lehigh Station, Pennsylvania. His mother decides to give George equal share in Hazard Iron as his elder brother, Stanley, to his wife's fury. Virgilia tricks Orry into attending one of her blatant abolitionist meetings with the family, where she attracts Congressman Sam Greene's romantic attentions. Scolded by Justin for failing to give him an heir, Madeline refuses to ...

In 1854, the Hazards pay a visit to Mont Royal. Billy loses his interest in Ashton when he sees her in the cotton barn with another man and soon turns his interest to the demure Brett. Virgilia is on her best behavior, as she has promised, until she meets James Hontoon's coachman Grady and forms an instant attraction to him. After spending the night together, she helps him run away to the North which leads to a confrontation with Huntoon. Orry feels he has little choice but to ask the Hazards to leave. Virgilia and Grady are soon living together as husband and wife ...

Having locked Madeline in her room and nearly starving her to death, Justin convinces the doctor that her condition is self-inflicted. The doctor prescribes his own tonic and a daily dose of laudanum which, despite its addictive qualities, will serve to calm her nerves. Madeline is soon a very different woman: submissive and with few words to say, she has little memory of her love affair with Orry and their decision to run off together. Orry and Brett travel to Philadelphia where he wants to give his good friend George Hazard his share of the profits from their cotton...

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 ...