Douglas Clyde Jones was born to Marvin Clyde Jones and Bethel Stuckburger Jones on December 6, 1924 in Winslow, Washington County, Arkansas. Jones attended grade school in both Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas and Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Fayetteville High School in 1942. The same year, he was drafted into the United States Army where he served in the Pacific theater during World War II. After the war, Jones attended the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and graduated with a bachelors degree in journalism in 1949. While in school, Jones met and married Mary Alice Arnold on January 1, 1949. They had three daughters and one son.

After graduating college, Jones returned to the army and for the next twenty-eight years he was stationed in Germany, Korea, and various military bases throughout the United States. In 1964, Jones received a masters degree in mass communications from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1968, Jones retired from the military at the rank of a lieutenant colonel and taught in the School of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1968 to 1974.

While teaching, he started a writing career with the first of eighteen novels. In 1966, The Treaty of Medicine Lodge was published by the University of Oklahoma Press. His first major success was The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer in 1977. Other famous works include Arrest Sitting Bull (1977), Elk Horn Lodge (1980), and Roman (1986). Some of his works were turned into made-for-television movies and plays. Jones was a member of several associations and won numerous awards. Jones also was a well-known painter with works in pen, pencil, oil, and watercolor. Using his talent, Jones illustrated his own novels as well as sold his own works as a side business. His work won him several awards including three Golden Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and the Owen Wister Lifetime Achievement Award. Jones died at the age of 74 on August 30, 1998 at his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas.