He completed his dissertation, Personal Confederacies: War and Peace in the American South, 1840-1890, and received his Ph.D. in December 2012.His forthcoming article “Personal Reconstructions: Southern Men as Soldiers and Citizens in the Post-Civil War South,” which will appear in Creating Citizenship in the 19th Century South, edited by William A. Link and David Brown. Interested in the intersection of gender and emotions as well as the lasting psychological affects of war, he has presented on these topics at the Southern Historical Association and the Society of Civil War Historians in addition to other venues.