North and South

Plot

Book I: North and South

Episode 1 (summer 1842 – summer 1844) – Young Southerner Orry Main, the second born son of a wealthy South Carolina plantation owner, decides to go to West Point. On his way to the train station, he rescues and falls in love with the beautiful French-Creole southern belle from New Orleans, Madeline Fabray. In New York City, Orry meets Northerner George Hazard, the second son of a wealthy Pennsylvania ironworks owner, who is also on his way to West Point. They quickly become close friends. At the Academy, they meet classmates George Pickett, George McClellan, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and a senior student named Ulysses Grant. They also meet the amoral egomaniac Elkanah Bent, a fellow cadet from Georgia. Bent is a handsome, smooth-talking man who hides his evil, twisted nature beneath his charm and good looks. He takes an instant dislike to Orry and George and uses his status as their drillmaster to constantly harass them. Orry constantly writes letters to Madeline, although it seems that she has not been responding to him. After two years of training, the men return home for a summer leave. George's sister, Virgilia, is a passionate abolitionist and immediately takes a dislike to Orry when she finds out that his family keeps slaves. While at home, Orry is devastated to learn that Madeline is marrying his cruel neighbor, plantation owner Justin LaMotte. Orry has an argument with his father over the hiring of the brutal and sadistic Salem Jones as the plantation's overseer. Orry stops Jones from using a bullwhip to "punish" one of the slaves, sparking a tense relationship between the two. After Orry witnesses Madeline's marriage, they privately speak to each other afterwards and find out that Madeline's father has been hiding Orry's letters to ensure that she would marry Justin. That night, Justin hits and rapes Madeline, leaving her traumatized.

Episode 2 (autumn 1844 – spring 1848) – Bent continues his cruelty toward George, Orry, and their friends. The men, with some help from other cadets, arrange for Bent to be caught with a prostitute and he is forced to leave the Academy. When Bent learns that Orry and George were involved, he vows revenge. George and Orry graduate from West Point two years later. They leave to fight in the Mexican War. During the Battle of Churubusco, Bent, who has blackmailed his father (Bent is an illegitimate son of a US senator) in order to obtain a superior rank, orders George and Orry to lead a suicidal charge against the Mexican forces. Both men survive, but Orry is shot in his left leg and permanently crippled. Meanwhile, George meets Constance Flynn, the Irish Catholic daughter of an Army surgeon, and falls in love. They plan to marry. Orry drowns his sorrows in alcoholism. With the Mexican War over, George quits the army, finds Bent, and beats him, threatening to kill him if he ever tries to harm him or Orry again. Traumatized by his injuries, Orry temporarily becomes a recluse. When Madeline helps Priam, one of Orry's slaves, escape, one of the other slaves gets whipped for helping Priam.

Book II: Love and War

Episode 1 (June 1861 – July 21, 1861) – 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, becomes a general and military aide to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the Confederate capital of 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 becomes a military aide to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Charles, a Confederate cavalry officer, meets Augusta Barclay, a Virginia belle who smuggles medicine for the southern soldiers. Virgilia wants to work as a nurse at a Washington, D.C. military hospital and asks Congressman Sam Greene, a fellow abolitionist, for help. Orry's cruel and manipulative sister Ashton meets her match in Elkanah Bent, who sees the Civil War as a great way to get rich by smuggling forbidden luxury goods through the U.S. Navy blockade of the South. Bent and Ashton quickly become lovers, while Ashton's politician husband, James Huntoon, is unaware of his wife's adultery. With Orry and Charles gone to war, Justin kidnaps Madeline from the Main family plantation and burns the cotton barn; Orry's mother is injured trying to stop the fire. The First Battle of Bull Run takes place with George and Constance watching from a distance along with hundreds of curious onlookers from Washington. The rebels, having retreated to Henry House Hill, rally and stand firm. Charles and his friend Ambrose, unable to find their unit, join in a charge with the first rebel cavalry they find. The Union troops they are attacking include Billy's Sharpshooters. Billy recognizes Charles among the rebels and ducks under a log as Charles' horse jumps over him and Charles rides on without seeing him. The Union forces are routed by the rebels and flee the battlefield. George and Constance's carriage becomes trapped in the rush of panicked civilian onlookers and their driver abandons them. Constance takes the reins as George loads wounded soldiers onto the carriage and they begin the long retreat back to Washington. As chaos erupts all around, George gazes across the field at the approaching rebels.

Episode 2 (July 1861 – summer 1862) – Hearing about her mother's injury, Brett and one of the Main household servants, Semiramis, make the dangerous trip from Washington, D.C. to the Main plantation in South Carolina. Along the way, Semiramis is captured by Union soldiers, but rescued by Brett. Orry leaves Richmond and returns to South Carolina as well; he finds Madeline at Justin's plantation and kills Justin in a fight. Orry and Madeline finally get married. Orry discovers Bent's illegal smuggling enterprise and stops it by capturing Bent's blockade runners, arresting his men, and destroying most of his merchandise. Bent and Ashton vow revenge. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, George's older brother Stanley assumes control of Hazard Iron. His greedy wife Isabel talks him into profiteering from the war by using cheap, low-grade iron to make cannons for the U.S. Army; the cannons often explode and kill Northern soldiers. They forge George's name on the documents, in case the cannons are traced back to Hazard Iron.

Book III: Heaven and Hell

Episode 1 (summer 1865–autumn 1865) – Elkanah Bent, having survived the explosion of his hidden ammunition depot near Richmond, becomes obsessed with getting his "final revenge" on Orry Main and George Hazard, whom he blames for his failures in life. Bent travels to Richmond and stabs Orry to death. Ashton visits Madeline with the threat of taking back everything of hers that Orry and Madeline took from her, including Mont Royal, but is horrified to learn that Bent killed Orry. When Bent tells her he has no use for her anymore, a furious Ashton tries unsuccessfully to kill him. Heartbroken at Orry's death, Madeline tries to rebuild the Main family mansion at Mont Royal and helps local freed people, to the disapproval of most of her white neighbors. After learning of Orry's death, George goes to Mont Royal and helps Madeline. Charles Main, now a corporal in the U.S. Cavalry in the Old West, meets and romances Willa Parker. Ashton begins working as a prostitute in Santa Fe to earn enough money to buy Mont Royal, unaware of its fate. Carrying out the next part of his plan of revenge, Bent goes to the Hazard mansion near Philadelphia and murders George's wife Constance.

Episode 2 (autumn 1865–spring 1866) – Devastated by news of his wife's murder, George begins searching for Bent to exact justice. Cooper Main, Orry's older brother, becomes a member of the Ku Klux Klan and begins working to undermine his sister-in-law Madeline's efforts to help formerly enslaved people. Isabel Hazard, George's greedy sister-in-law, wants to buy Mont Royal and evict the Main family. Charles continues to work as a cavalryman in the Old West, and continues to romance Willa. Realizing that she cannot stand against Cooper and Isabel alone, Madeline asks George for help. Charles helps to form a unit of buffalo soldiers. Cavalrymen massacre a Cheyenne village.

Episode 3 (spring 1866–spring/summer 1866) – George arrives at Mont Royal to help Madeline, and they fall in love. George, with his brother Stanley's help (who has now gone into politics), make Isabel end her plans, and Stanley divorces her, blaming her for all his mistakes. Carrying out the final part of his revenge, Bent kidnaps Charles and Augusta's son Gus. When George learns of this, he goes West and finds Charles. Together the two men rescue Gus, hunt down Bent, and hang him, avenging Orry and Constance. Ashton returns to Mont Royal and weeps when she sees that it has been destroyed. George and Charles return to Mont Royal to help Madeline and the freed slaves defeat the Ku Klux Klan. Cooper takes Madeline during the fight, and George rides after to save her. When Cooper is told by Gettys LaMotte to kill both Madeline and George, he refuses. Gettys kills Cooper, and George kills Gettys. Charles says his goodbyes before returning to Willa and Gus, while George and Madeline plan for their future together.

Cast

The initial 1985 miniseries cast Patrick Swayze as Orry Main and James Read as George Hazard with Lesley-Anne Down as Orry's love interest Madeline and Wendy Kilbourne as George's future wife Constance. Kirstie Alley played George's outspoken abolitionist sister Virgilia, with Genie Francis as Orry's "good" sister Brett and Terri Garber as his selfish and wicked sister Ashton, as well as Philip Casnoff as Elkanah Bent, George and Orry's nemesis. All of these actors returned for the 1986 sequel, and the roles of George's brother Billy Hazard and sister-in-law Isabel Hazard were recast with Parker Stevenson and Mary Crosby.

North and South (1985) also featured many well-known actors as guest stars, including Elizabeth Taylor as bordello proprietor Madam Conti, David Carradine as the sadistic Justin LaMotte, Hal Holbrook as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Gene Kelly as Bent's father Senator Charles Edwards, Robert Mitchum as Colonel Patrick Flynn, M.D., Johnny Cash as abolitionist John Brown aka-Captain Smith, Jean Simmons as Orry's mother Clarissa Main, Mitchell Ryan as Orry's father Tillet Main, John Anderson as George's father William Hazard, Jonathan Frakes as George's older brother Stanley Hazard, Inga Swenson as George's mother Maude Hazard, Robert Guillaume as abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Morgan Fairchild as Burdetta Halloran, David Ogden Stiers as Representative Sam Greene, and Olivia Cole as Madeline's devoted but doomed servant Maum Sally. John Jakes' wife Rachel also made an appearance in Episode 6 as Lincoln's wife Mary. North and South: Book II (1986) saw the return of Carradine as LaMotte, Holbrook as Lincoln, and Stiers as Greene, as well as new guests Lloyd Bridges as Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Anthony Zerbe as Ulysses S. Grant, Nancy Marchand as Dorothea Dix, James Stewart as Miles Colbert, Wayne Newton as Captain Thomas Turner, and William Schallert as Robert E. Lee, with Linda Evans as Rose Sinclair and Olivia de Havilland as Mrs. Neal. 1994's Heaven and Hell featured Peter O'Toole as "louche actor" Sam Trump.

Filming of the miniseries resulted in four marriages among the cast and crew. Read and Kilbourne, who played opposite each other, married in 1988 and now have two children. Frakes and Francis, who had previously played opposite each other on the failed NBC soap Bare Essence, also married in 1988. Lesley-Anne Down married assistant cameraman Don E. FauntLeRoy in 1986. They met during filming of Book I when both were married to other people, and eventually obtained divorces. Garber married screenwriter Chris Hager, whom she met in 1985 when he worked as a grip on the set of North and South: Book II. They had a daughter, Molly, in 1986, and later divorced.

Production

North and South (1985) was directed by Richard T. Heffron, from a script adaptation by Patricia Green, Douglas Heyes, Paul F. Edwards, and Kathleen A. Shelley. It was produced by David L. Wolper, Paul Freeman, Rob Harland, and Chuck McLain, with music by Bill Conti and Stevan Larner as cinematographer. Wolper also produced 1986's North and South: Book II with his son Mark Wolper, as well as Stephanie Austin and Robert Papazian. Conti returned as composer, with Kevin Connor directing, Jacques R. Marquette as cinematographer, and a script by Heyes and Richard Fielder. Heaven and Hell: North and South Book III (1994) was directed by Larry Peerce from a script by Suzanne Clauser. Hal Galli produced the miniseries, with music by David Bell and Don E. FauntLeRoy as cinematographer.

Broadcast

North and South premiered on ABC on November 3, 1985. Book II premiered on May 4, 1986, and Book III premiered on February 27, 1994.

Awards and nominations

The North and South miniseries were nominated and/or awarded with many different awards around the world, among which the most significant are:

Media

Streaming

All three North and South miniseries are available on multiple streaming platforms, including iTunes, Prime Video and Google Play.

Soundtrack

The Varèse Sarabande Soundtrack Club released the entire score to North and South (1985) in a four-CD box set on February 25, 2008. The tracks in this set are the original recordings used in the production of the series, with three discs devoted to Conti's score and a fourth to the source music from the series. The entire score to North and South: Book II (1986) was released on October 3, 2008, and includes three CDs. On December 4, 2015, North and South: Highlights, a 76-minute disc featuring selections from the first miniseries score, was released.