To prepare for the role of George Hazard, James Read spent several weeks at Patrick Swayze's horse ranch, where Swayze taught Read how to ride.
Since modern West Point bears little physical resemblance to the Academy of 1842, the West Point scenes were filmed at Jefferson College outside Natchez, Mississippi. Local military school cadets and R.O.T.C. students involved in this mini-series were granted permission to grow their hair for six months for the proper period look.
James Read's great-great-uncle, Sebaldus Hassler, fought and died with the Union Army, falling in battle at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 20, 1863. Read's great-great-grandfather, Sampson T. Groves, served in the First Ohio Volunteer Heavy Artillery until his honorable discharge on July 25, 1865, after which he lived to a ripe old age.
Filming of this mini-series resulted in three marriages amongst the cast and crew. James Read and Wendy Kilbourne, who played opposite each other, married in 1988 and now have two children. Jonathan Frakes and Genie Francis, who had previously played opposite each other on the failed NBC soap opera Bare Essence (1983), also married in 1988. Lesley-Anne Down married Assistant Cameraman Don E. FauntLeRoy in 1986. They met when both were married to other people, and eventually obtained divorces.
Living history groups with the expertise to re-create the Mexican-American War battle of Churubusco (1847) filmed the battle in a field near Natchez, Mississippi. In mid May 1984, fourteen re-enactor units from a dozen states took a week to stage the largest authentic encampment of Mexican War re-enactors ever held. More than one hundred forty people arrived at their own expenses, bringing their own (mostly handmade) period-correct uniforms, hand weapons, and artillery, caissons, limbers, battery wagons, field ambulances, tenting, and camping equipment. The production company provided water, hay, feed, and straw for horses, reimbursement for powder, and donations to each of the participating units.