Grady McWhiney (July 15, 1928 – April 18, 2006) was a historian of the American south and the Civil War. McWhiney was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and served in the Marine Corps in 1945. He married in 1947. He attended Centenary College on the G.I. Bill and earned an Master of Arts in history from Louisiana State University, working with Francis Butler Simkins. He received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in New York, working with David Herbert Donald. McWhiney was a former director of the League of the South, but he had broken with the group prior to his death.