About the Author

Chattanooga, Tennessee, native Roy Morris Jr. is the editor of Civil War Quarterly and the author of eight well-received books on 19th-Century American history and literature. His most recent book, American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad, will be published in March by Harvard University Press. His other books include Declaring His Genius: Oscar Wilde in North America; Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain; The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln’s Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America; Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876; The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War; Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company; and Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan. He also edited and wrote the introduction for the definitive edition of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary.

Besides serving as editor of various popular-history magazines for the past 30 years, Morris has also written for Politico, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast. His books have been chosen by the History Book Club, Book of the Month Club, Military History Book Club, Readers Subscription Book Club and Books on Tape, and six have been published in paperback. Morris has appeared on the prestigious author-interview program Booknotes and C-SPAN’s Book-TV, and has spoken at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Art Club in New York City, the Atlanta History Center, the Prologue Society in Miami and at Civil War roundtables across the country. A former newspaper reporter and political correspondent, Morris was founding editor of America’s Civil War magazine before going on to edit Military Heritage and Civil War Quarterly magazines. He has also served as a consultant for the A&E television network and the History Channel. He holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and from 2004-2007 was a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he edited a three-volume collection of articles on the Civil War, 19th-Century journalism and free expression for Purdue University Press. He resides with his wife Leslie in their hometown of Chattanooga.