The North and South Trilogy

The North and South Trilogy follows the Mains of South Carolina and the Hazards of Pennsylvania, two families joined when Orry Main and George Hazard become friends at West Point. Their bond survives the Mexican–American War and years of sectional conflict, but slavery, secession and family pressure place them on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

The trilogy moves from antebellum plantation and industrial society through the battlefields and political intrigue of the Civil War into Reconstruction and the Plains campaigns. Its interlocking family narratives show how national conflict enters marriages, businesses, friendships and households, leaving victory and defeat incapable of restoring the world that existed before 1861.