Education
- PhD, Louisiana State University, 1978
About
Research Interests
- Southern History
- American Civil War
Current Projects
- A study of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan.
Courses Taught
- American Civilization to 1865
- American South to 1865
- Literature of American History (Graduate)
- Literature of Southern History (Graduate)
- Graduate Proseminar on the Civil War
Awards and Honors
- Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in the Southern History, Louisiana State University (2014)
- SEC Faculty Achievement Award (2014)
- Burnum Distinguished Faculty Award (2012)
- Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor, University of Alabama (2003).
- President, Society of Civil War Historians (2004-8).
Selected Publications
- Damn Yankees! Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015).
- God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
- Recipient of the Jefferson Davis Award
- Choice Outstanding Academic Title
- Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
- Winner of the Lincoln Prize
- Winner of the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award in American Military History
- Winner of the Jefferson Davis Award
- Winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman Southern History Award
- A History Book Club Selection
- The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994).
- A History Book Club Selection
- Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
- Winner of the Jefferson Davis Award
- Winner of the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize
- But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984).