William C. Hammond (born November 5, 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American novelist of historical fiction best known for his Cutler Family Chronicles series.

The grandson of William Churchill Hammond, an American organist, choirmaster, and music educator Mount Holyoke College, Hammond grew up in Manchester-by-the-Sea, a seaside town on Boston’s North Shore, where he learned to sail and haul lobster traps in the waters off Cape Ann.

He also spent a summer in his late teens at Hurricane Island Outward Bound School off the coast of Maine.

Hammond, a sailor, and lifelong student of history and reader of historical fiction, wrote A Matter of Honor, For Love of Country, and subsequent titles in the series originally published by the United States Naval Institute.

Highlights in the series include conflicts with Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, the Quasi War with France in the West Indies, the birth of Haiti, the rise of America as a commercial power,[3] and the ongoing love affair between the protagonist and his English-born wife.