Reconstruction: Heal or Kill

Reconstruction: Heal or Kill takes place in a small Illinois town in 1871, portraying life in rural America. The novel reveals the prejudices against freed slaves during the post-Civil War era, when the KKK was terrorizing freed slaves.

Tom, a teenage boy, had planned on a life fighting Indians, until a new doctor, trained in Edinburgh, arrives on a steamboat and convinces him that healing is better than killing. The doctor, an ex-Union soldier, is an expert pistol shot, drinks whisky, and p...