Donald McCaig (May 1, 1940 in Butte, Montana – November 11, 2018)[1] was an American novelist, poet, essayist and sheepdog trainer.
He received a BA in philosophy from Montana State University in 1963 and subsequently completed postgraduate studies in shepherding and sheepdogs.
[3] He had a brief but successful career on New York's Madison Avenue before moving to a sheep farm in Bath County, near Williamsville in the western mountains of Virginia with his wife, Anne.
[4] His 1998 novel, Jacob's Ladder, and his 2008 novel, Canaan, won the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction.
Before that, he wrote the highly acclaimed Rhett Butler's People, a sequel to Gone with the Wind authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate.