Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

I have just finished reading Leonard Pitts, Jr. novel Freeman about an educated ex-slave and Union soldier who ventures into the South after the close of the Civil War to look for his wife who he left behind 15 years earlier when he escaped slavery.  The novel gives a close up look at what it was like for a black man traveling in the turmoil of the war-torn and unsettled southern states.  Also portrayed is an attempt by a northern woman to establish a school for freed slaves in a small southern town.  I found the novel well-written and revealing of the cultural divides that existed at that time.   It gave me a feel for the period my great uncle lived in after his return from his  hard service with the 82nd Ohio in the Civil War.