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.