William Shield McFeely (September 25, 1930 – December 11, 2019)[1] was an American historian known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1981 biography of Ulysses S. Grant, as well as his contributions to a reevaluation of the Reconstruction era, and for advancing the field of African-American history.

[2] At Yale, he studied with, among others, C. Vann Woodward, whose book The Strange Career of Jim Crow was a staple of the Civil Rights Movement.

His dissertation, later the 1968 book Yankee Stepfather, explored the ill-fated Freedmen's Bureau which was created to help ex-slaves after the Civil War.

He concluded that Grant "did not rise above limited talents or inspire others to do so in ways that make his administration a credit to American politics.

McFeely died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis on December 11, 2019, at his home in Sleepy Hollow, New York, at the age of 89.