Centers on Sara, an unhappily married photographer who begins a torrid affair with Jack, a lawyer for a powerful family.

While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.

In the crime-ridden slums of New York in the 1860s, vengeful orphan Amsterdam Vallon joins the cutthroat gang of his father's killer, Bill the Butcher.

The three sons of a Montana rancher are swept up in the violence of World War I and their love for the same woman in this epic family saga.