Where is the setting in the book Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule?Also, what trail do they take, and where do they get their forty acres?

The story is set in the years immediately after the
American Civil War, during the era of Reconstruction. Specifically, the events happen
between the months of April and September 1865. Earlier in that year, an order had been
issued by General William Tecumseh Sherman, which was to have given out a free forty
acres of land to former slave families. Administered by the Freedmen's Bureau, abandoned
or uninhabited land was given out in South Carolina and Georgia. The program lasted only
a few months before it was revoked, however. In September of 1865, Circular 15 rescinded
the the order, and of the many freed slaves who had been given their own land, only a
handful were allowed to keep it.

The land that was set
aside for the program was located on the islands and along the coast of Georgia. The
setting in the book is not specific in regards to cities the characters pass through, or
the trails that they take. The author does tell us that Pascal, his brother Gideon, and
Nelly begin their journey from a plantation somewhere in South Carolina. They pass
through at least nine towns in search of a Freedmen's Bureau, and cross a covered bridge
over the Savannah River into Georgia. Once in Georgia, at a possibly fictional town
called River Stop, the freed slaves find a Freedmen's Bureau, and are granted title to
land of their own. Georgia lies to the southwest of South Carolina, and the Savannah
River lies along the border between the two states. Since most of the land given in the
forty acres program was along the coast, and the characters' mode of transportation was
by walking, they most probably left a plantation somewhere near the southern tip of
South Carolina, and crossed over into the eastern part of Georgia, near the
coast.