Set during the catastrophic New Madrid earthquake of 1812, Black Powder is the story of Robert Young, a former captain in the Barbary Wars and his river journey on America's first steamboat to rescue the woman he loves from a gang of river pirates led by his cutthroat nemesis and former commander, Samuel Mason. En route, he encounters hostile Indians, swashbuckling battles, and several historical figures, all set against the backdrop of an earthquake that sinks islands, reverses the flow of the Mississippi River, and wrenchingly exposes the fractures of a new nation itself.