This is Hippolyte's story. It is that of Abraham Lincoln, the birth of Steam-boating, and a pirate who helped win the War of 1812. It is also the story of a slave named Tom Armstrong, and of common people who drove the birth of technology and freedom. It is a story of America's Civil War, and of Longfellow, Louisiana, Huey Long, and a love affair so intense it is described in one of America's most famous pieces of classic literature.