Born and raised in North Tonawanda, New York (eight miles up the river from Niagara Falls), Gary Ecelbarger grew up with a fascination for history and science and a burning desire to write. He received an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Nutritional Biochemistry in 1989 and spent the next 16 years working in hospital intensive care units, teaching medical students, and conducting clinical research.

But beginning in the 1990's Ecelbarger also combined his love of history and writing. After publishing magazine articles and book reviews, he wrote his first book, We Are in for It!, which was published in 1997 and featured as an editor's choice for the History Book Club. That same year, Time-Life Books hired Ecelbarger as a consultant and writer for two volumes of its Voices of the Civil War series. By this time he was already a popular symposium speaker and a tour guide for various organizations.

Eight years, two more books and a dozen articles later, Ecelbarger quit his day job at the end of 2005 to dedicate his complete attention to writing, researching, touring, and interpreting American history. The decision immediately converted him to a prolific and popular writer of 19th century nonfiction. He is a leading authority of the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley and has been consulted frequently for historical interpretations of Civil War battlefields in the Valley. He has also emerged as a Lincoln scholar and has divided his spare research and touring time in the Rockies and on Revolutionary War sites.

Since 1992 Gary Ecelbarger has resided in Virginia. He currently lives 15 miles west of Washington, D.C., with his wife, a Georgetown professor, and three school-aged children.