While waiting in a local flour mill in the town of Lauterbach in the German principality of Hesse Darmstadt in 1765, Martin Suppes sees a written manifesto from Catherine the Great of Russia offering land and freedom from service to citizens of Darmstadt by moving to Russia. Martin decides to go with his eldest son, twenty-year-old Conrad, to meet with Catherine's representative about Conrad taking up the offer, only to hear that Her Majesty prefers to sponsor established families for populating her colonies.
At first, Gertrude, the family matriarch, refuses to consider her entire family, including six children, making such a move but relents when Louis, landgrave ruler of Hesse Darmstadt announces plans to draft young men into his army of rent-a-soldiers. Gertrude does not want any of her sons suffering the fate of her brother who was wounded during the recent Seven Years War while fighting as a mercenary on behalf of the Prussian/British alliance against the Holy Roman Empire, which during the war, included Darmstadt. Gertrude's brother had eventually died from his wounds, leaving behind only the memory of a long and painful death and his jaeger rifle, a unique firearm that Conrad has learned to use with great proficiency under the guidance of Baron von Riedesel while employed as a ranger on the old baron's estate.
With the aid of the baron, the Suppes family, including Conrad, is able to leave Darmstadt and begin a yearlong journey on land, sea, and river to one of Empress Catherine's colonies along the Volga River. During their journey, they encounter numerous mishaps and trials, including dealing with various unscrupulous characters and the vagaries of Russian bureaucracy during Catherine's "period of enlightenment."
On arrival at the new colony, the family finds itself dealing with the idiosyncrasies of Russian weather, animals (wild and domestic), and a resentful local population. This resentment eventually boils over in the form of the Pugachev rebellion of 1774, during which the Suppes family members find themselves, once again, grappling with the same concerns they thought they had left behind by moving to Russia.
