Roy Morris Jr. is the editor of Military Heritage magazine and the author of four well-received books on the Civil War and post-Civil War eras: Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 (Simon and Schuster, 2003); The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2000); Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company (Crown, 1996); and Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan (Crown, 1992).
He also edited and wrote the introduction for a popular new edition of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1999).
His books have been chosen by the History Book Club, Book of the Month Club, Readers Subscription Book Club, and Books on Tape, and all four have been published in paperback. He has been reviewed in the New York Times' Book Review, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review of Books and New Leader, as well as leading newspapers across the country. Morris has appeared on the prestigious author-interview program, Booknotes, and his speech at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville in 2003 was carried live on C-SPAN's Book-TV.
He has also spoken at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Arts Club in New York City. A former newspaper reporter and political correspondent for the Chattanooga News-Free Press and the Chattanooga Times, he was founding editor of America's Civil War magazine, which he edited for 14 years. He has also served as a historical consultant for A&E Network and the History Channel. In 1986, Morris received the annual Author's Prize from Civil War Times Illustrated for best historical article of the year.
Morris is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and holds a master's degree in English from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is currently working on a new book for Smithsonian/HarperCollins on the presidential election of 1860, as well as serving as a special projects editor for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.