Book 1 - Episode 2 - Autumn 1844 - Spring 1848

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 openly disagreeing with separatism and arranges slave Priam to offend publicly so overseer Salem Jones is allowed to punish his insolence with branding. Orry starts a secret affair with reluctant Madeline. Bent plays his secret trump card, Ohio's US Senator Charles Edwards, being Elkanah's natural father, to get commissioned as infantry captain in president Polk's war to wrest Texas from Mexico, and sends lieutenants Orry and George on a virtual suicide reconnaissance at Churubusco. Shell-hit Orry is crippled for life, but Constance, the daughter of Colonel Patrick Flynn MD, who saved Orry from worse, becomes George's true love. After pa William Hazard's death, George resigns and joins the firm under Stanley's directorship. Madelin helps Priam run away, Justin flogs all slaves as possible accomplices. Even Orry leaves his recluse room to join the manhunt and meets Madeline again.