North and South

Behind the scenes documentary on the making of the American North and South limited series, including interviews with John Jakes, David Wolper, Patrick Swayze, Lesley Anne Down, Bill Conti and other principals.

1842: Orry Main leaves the cotton plantation near Charleston that he's heir to on his way to West Point for two years of officer's training. On the way, he meets and falls in love with Madeline Fabray, who agrees to write to him. However, her father needs her to wed Orry's rude neighbor, rich plantation owner Justin LaMotte. Orry's letters to Madeline become intercepted by her father so she becomes susceptible to Justin's generous courting. At West Point, Orry meets fellow cadet George Hazard, son of a Pennsylvania manufacturer. The hazing lives up to its reputation, not least due to drill master Elkanah Bent, who takes particular pleasure in humbling the cadets at sword-practice, but is humiliatingly defeated by Orry. George introduces Orry to his Pennsylvania family and their iron factory. After graduating and returning home, Orry stops an overseer from happily whipping a slave, but his father, Tillet, refuses to sack the sadist.

George distracts Orry, whose brooding about Madeline wrecks his West Point performance. Bent bluffs his way out of a court-martial but its president eventually bullies him out of West Point. At a party hosted by Tillet Main, Justin scolds Madeline for disagreeing with separatism and arranges for a slave to give public offense so the overseer is allowed to punish him with branding. Bent trades on his status as the bastard son of Ohio's U.S. Senator to get commissioned as an infantry captain in the Mexican-American War. In command once again of lieutenants Orry and George, he sends them on a suicide mission. Both survive but Orry is crippled for life. Constance, the daughter of the colonel who saves Orry from dying from his wounds, becomes George's true love. When George's father dies, he resigns his commission and returns home. The branded slave runs away and even reclusive Orry joins the manhunt, reuniting him with reluctant Madeline and starting their secret affair.

George and Orry's friendship is severely tested when one of the Mains' slaves escapes. Orry still travels to Pennsylvania for George and Constance's wedding, but when he hears a speech given by Virgilia Hazard at an abolitionist rally, he realizes the depth of their divisions. George's mother decides that he should assume full control at the family iron works, much to his older brother Stanley's dismay. Orry's father dies, and his first act as owner of the plantation is to fire the cruel slave overseer. Orry's cousin Charles finds himself challenged to a duel and Orry acts as his second. Orry's sister Ashton is something of a flirt and being pursued by lawyer James Huntoon. The Mains visit the Hazards for the summer, where Charles and George's younger brother Billy, who are both West Point-bound, become close friends. Orry's younger sister, Brett, takes an interest in Billy but he seems to prefer Ashton. Madeline's marriage to Justin continues to decline after he beats and whips her.

Orry and Charles, now officers in the Confederate Army, leave the Main family plantation for the war in Virginia. Orry, despite having been against secession, accepts a commission to brigadier general and begins to serve as military aide to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond. Meanwhile, George and Billy are in Washington, D.C., where they are officers in the U.S. Army. Billy joins the U.S. Sharpshooters regiment, while George also accepts a commission, though only to colonel, and becomes a military aide to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The ebb and flow of war has begun with victories and defeats on both sides. Brett and Semiramis make it safely back to Mont Royal, after a dangerous encounter with Northern troops. When Orry hears that Justin has abducted Madeline from Mont Royal, he rescues her and they are soon married. Virgilia meets Dorothy Dix who accepts her as a nurse on the basis of Congressman Sam Greene's recommendation. Orry needs to stop the blockade runners and is almost captured by a Northern patrol. By the purest luck, he meets George on the trail. Bent has ambitions of megalomaniacal proportions and has every intention of gaining power in the South, fully expecting his new lover, Ashton, to be at his side. His scorned former paramour puts him out of business for a while. Charles is wounded and makes his way to Augusta Barclay's farm where he recuperates. At Lehigh Station, Stanley Hazard, egged on by his ever ambitious wife and against his better judgment, gets involved in shady deals.

By September 1862, the South appears to be on the verge of victory. President Lincoln wants to emancipate all slaves but recognizes he needs a victory on the battlefield before he can do so. Dissatisfied with his current commander, he sends George Hazard to sound out Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on whether he would take on overall command of the Northern forces. After the disgruntled former overseer kills a runaway slave from Mont Royal, the family decides to offer safe passage to any of their slaves who wish to leave. Soon after, Ashton arrives and is shocked to find Brett and Madeline working in the fields. She also reveals to Madeline that she knows her great secret, which she will make public unless she leaves. Virgilia is now working in a Union field hospital and is admonished by the chief nurse, Mrs. Neal, to treat all soldiers the same. Charles and Billy come face-to-face on the battlefield.

With the war having come to an end, Orry and Madeline are living in Richmond until Mont Royal can be rebuilt, where Bent and Ashton pay them a visit. Ashton thinks it's to get money out of Orry, but Bent has revenge in mind. Ashton pushes Bent into the river and when he awakens, he can't remember who he is. Madeline relocates to South Carolina, intent on rebuilding their former home. With the help of Prudence, she also wants to build a school. George Hazard visits Madeline with a business proposition. After his visit, Madeline gets a night time visit by the Ku Klux Klan. Just as he arrives home in Lehigh Station, Pennsylvania George finds that Bent has already been there.

With Madeline's school burned to the ground by the Klan, they decide to rebuild. Cooper Main has discovered phosphates on Mont Royal land and with Isabelle Hazard as an investor, begins a mining operation. The conditions of work are poor, however, and the former slaves who work there are forced into another kind of servitude when they are forced to use the company store to buy their supplies, kept in perpetual debt. In Pennsylvania, George Hazard is bereft over the loss of Constance and has become obsessed with finding Bent and exacting his revenge. He has Pinkerton's men tracking him, but they always seem to be one step behind. It takes a visit from Madeline to save him from himself. Ashton has given up prostitution and is now focusing on her new husband's piano business, obsessed with raising enough money to buy Mont Royal. Charlie Main meanwhile refuses to settle down with Willa and continues to roam the West, now as an army scout searching for Scar, who killed his friends.

When George Hazard learns that it's his sister-in-law who owns the majority shares in the mining operation at Mont Royal, he turns to his brother Stanley, who again does the right thing. George returns to Mont Royal with Madeline and as the new owner of the mine, makes his first act shuttering the company store. He and Madeline soon fall in love. When George learns that Bent has kidnapped Charlie's young son, he sets off to find him. He and Charlie track Bent down for a final confrontation. Back in South Carolina, George and Madeline prepare for an attack from the Klan. Ashton returns to find what remains of her beloved Mont Royal.