Richard M. McMurry is a native of Atlanta. He attended the public schools in that city and in Decatur, GA. In 1961 he received the B.A. degree in history from VMI. He served two years active duty in the US Army, most of the time as the Personnel Management Officer at Fort Campbell, Ky (1961-1963). He received an honorable discharge from the Reserves in 1967. Entering graduate school at Emory University in Sept 1963, he received the M.A. degree in June 1964 and the Ph.D. in June 1967.

From 1967 until 1981 MuMurry taught history at Valdosta (Georgia) State College. He taught as an adjunct professor at North Carolina State from 1981-1988. Since 1988 he has been a freelance writer and speaker and has served as a guide/historian for many tour and cruise groups.

McMurry's field of specialization is the American Civil War. He has authored more than one hundred articles on various facets of that great conflict. In 1994 two of his books - John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence and Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History - were listed among the one hundred best modern Civil War books as selected by the magazine United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Fletcher Pratt Award, presented by the New York Civil War Round Table. In 1999 MuMurry published Virginia Military Institute Alumni in the Civil War: In Bello Praesidium. His history of the 1864 military operations in North Georgia - Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy - was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2000 as a volume in the Great Campaigns of the Civil War Series. The Austin (Texas) Civil War Round Table selected the book for the 2001 Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Prize awarded for distinguished scholarship and writing on the military or political history of the Civil War. McMurry's book, The Fourth Battle of Winchester: Toward a New Civil War Paradigm, was published in 2002 by Kent State University Press. McMurry has also edited or co-edited several works - notably Footprints of a Regiment (1987) by William H. Andrews; An Uncompromising Secessionist: The Civil War of George Knox Miller, 8th (Wade's) Confederate Cavalry (2007); and (with Gordon B. McKinney) the microfilm edition of The Papers of Zebulon B. Vance (1996). In 2005 the Civil War Round Table of Chicago presented McMurry with its Nevins-Freeman Award for outstanding work in Civil War history.

Richard McMurry has spoken to Civil War groups; high school, college, and university students; historical, literary, and library societies; and civic clubs in thirty states and the District of Columbia. He is a member of numerous historical societies and is active in such organizations as the Civil War Preservation Trust and the Civil War Education Association. He presently lives and writes in Dalton, GA.