Fairfax Davis Downey (1893-1990) was an American writer and military historian.

He was born on November 28, 1893, the son of General George F. Downey and the grandson of Captain, Brevet Major, George Mason Downey, 14th, 32nd, and 21st Infantry, U.S. Army (1861-1888). Fairfax Downey graduated from Yale, where he was an editor of campus humor magazine The Yale Record. After college, he served in the U.S. Army as a captain of the 12th Field Artillery during World War 1. He was a recipient of the Silver Star for gallantry during the Battle of Belleau Wood (June 1-26, 1918). During the Second World War he served in North Africa, retiring as a lieutenant-colonel.

Downey worked as a newspaper reporter for the Kansas City Star, the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Sun and retired to West Springfield, New Hampshire in the 1950s, where his wife’s family had summered for a number of years at the family home Adamsfort. He was married at the time of his death to Washington DC socialite Mildred Adams (1894-1996), daughter of Dr. Samuel S. Adams, and had one daughter and four grandchildren.

Downey wrote biographies of Richard Harding Davis, Charles Dana Gibson, and Richard Francis Burton. His books on history and military history included Our Lusty Forefathers, (1947), Sound of the Guns (1956), and Storming of the Gateway (1960).

He died on May 31, 1990, aged 95, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.