This is a biographical novel about the life of Nova Scotia sea captain, James Allen Graham, who sailed during the high age of sail and he also witnessed its decline with arrival of steam. Graham was from Lower Economy, Nova Scotia and on his first voyage was captured off North Carolina by the Confederate Navy and interned for several months. During that time he witness the dire straits that the South was in in 1963 as he was dragooned into removing wounded soldiers from trains as they arrived after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Based on Graham's log books and letters to his family, the author who is a descendant of Captain Graham, fleshes out the story by adding detail he senses between the lines of the letters. Thus we read about the Captain's romances in ports around the world as well as his marriage and family life.

We do learn a great deal about life on a sailing ship in the 19th Century and how cargoes were acquired and supplies barter for. We witness what it was like to experience a storm on the Atlantic Ocean and several of his ships did flounder and sink including the Dove the experience of which made a lasting impression him thus the title of the book. While this is a novel, it is also a primer on life on a sailing vessel in the 19th Century and a very readable primer at that. ( )