Slavery. A crime against humanity and the basis for a whole economy in one of the most shameful aspects of our history is the backdrop against which Lucky Nat is painted. Based on a true and all but forgotten incident, part sea chase and part courtroom drama, it is the story of the capture, trial, and execution of Captain Nathanial Gordon, the only slaver executed for piracy using an 1820 law that declared all slavers to be pirates and if found guilty hanged, Commander Sylvanus Godon of the US Navy's Africa Squadron, who captured him at sea, and those men who brought him to justice and fought in his defense in a controversial landmark case that reaches from the Circuit Court of the Southern District of New York City to Washington and the newly elected President Lincoln.