Douglas Clyde Jones (December 6, 1924 – August 30, 1998) was an American author of historical fiction, including alternative history fiction. As a boy, he had lived for a time in

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

, adjacent to former Indian territory. Douglas Jones was born in

Winslow, Arkansas Winslow (formerly Summit Home) is a city in southern Washington County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 391 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Northwest Arkansas region. History A stagecoach stop for many years, the community now ...

. Following the divorce of his parents, he graduated from the Fayetteville, Arkansas high school in 1942 and was drafted into the army, where he served in the Pacific Theater. Following his discharge, Jones attended the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

and obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1949. He subsequently returned to the army and served for another twenty years. In service, he obtained a master's degree from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

. After retiring as a Lt. Colonel in 1968 after twenty-five years of service, Jones taught journalism at Wisconsin for six years. Jones wrote his first novel, ''The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer'', which was soon turned into a television drama, based on the premise that Custer had survived the

Battle of the Little Big Horn The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nor ...

. In addition to his writings, Jones was also a painter in the western genre and a jazz musician. Douglas Jones died in Fayetteville of obstructive pulmonary disease. In an effort to keep his work alive, in November 2010, New American Library reissued Jones's Civil War novel ''Elkhorn Tavern'' in trade paperback. It is the first of four planned reissues of his novels.

Books by Douglas Jones

* ''The Treaty of Medicine Lodge'' on fiction(1966) * ''The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer'' (1976) * ''Arrest Sitting Bull'' (1977) * ''A Creek Called Wounded Knee'' (1978) * ''Winding Stair'' (1979) * ''Elkhorn Tavern'' (1980) * ''Weedy Rough''

tories A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

(1981) * ''The Barefoot Brigade'' (1982) * ''Season of Yellow Leaf'' (1983) * ''Gone the Dreams and Dancing'' (1984) * ''Roman'' (1986) * ''Remember Santiago'' (1988) * ''Come Winter'' (1989) * ''The Search for Temperance Moon'' (1991) * ''This Savage Race'' (1993) * ''Shadow of the Moon'' (1995) * ''A Spider for Loco Shoat'' (1997) * ''Sometimes There Were Heroes'' (2005)

References

Arkansas Encyclopedia

Writers from Arkansas 20th-century American novelists People from Fayetteville, Arkansas 1998 deaths 1924 births American male novelists 20th-century American male writers United States Army personnel of World War II University of Arkansas alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni United States Army colonels {{Arkansas-stub