Moby Dick was written by Herman Melville in 1851.
Now it is fourteen years after Moby Dick destroyed the whaling ship, the Pequod, and killed Captain Ahab and all of his crew, lost to the vast ocean, except for one, Ishmael the only survivor.
The good and Godly people of New Bedford, Massachusetts want justice for the whaling men of the Pequod and have offered a bounty of ten thousand dollars for the killing of that white devil of the sea, Moby Dick
So far, three whaling ships, from 1851 to 1855, have taken the offer, with all three whaling ships meeting the same fate as the Pequod.
Now the year is 1865 and the American Civil War has just ended. Men, like the main character, William Bowman, are returning home to family and friends, once more, wanting to have a job and possibly a peaceful life.
Many whaling men have returned home wanting to do what they did before the war, that being whaling.
The master and captain of the whaling ship is Abraham Ormsby Jr., a righteous, strong Quaker who has been a whaling man for thirty years.
The ship, the Yankee Swift, built for the war is now refitted for whaling and the brave whaling men, fifty strong, willing to sail from ocean to ocean to track down, cut and bleed, not only the blood but the high price oil from Moby Dick.