She graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in History and in Native American Studies, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. She is a social and political historian of 19 th century America, and her research and teaching interests include the history of slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, Reconstruction, race, gender, citizenship, and democracy, and Native American and Women’s history. Her current book project, “Worth a Dozen Men”: Union and Confederate Nurses during the Civil War, explores the role of white southern women in the creation of Lost-Cause mythology. Her work compares the struggle of white and black female war veterans over the memory and meaning of the war and its impact on post-war race relations.