Robert Hilliard Woody was born in 1903 in the Little Cataloochee Creek community of Haywood County in western North Carolina. Woody attended grammar schools in Kentucky and graduated from high school in London, Kentucky in 1923. That fall, he entered Emory University and studied history under Professor Francis Butler Simkins. Woody received his B.Ph. degree from Emory in 1927, then earned an M.A. (1928) and a Ph.D. (1930) from Duke University. Woody's dissertation was part of a collaborative work with mentor Francis Butler Simkins. Their book, South Carolina During Reconstruction (1932), earned the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association in 1931.

In 1929, Woody began teaching history as a full professor at Duke University. For the first seven years of his teaching career, he taught modern European history. In 1932, he began to teach United States history. Some of his courses were about American colonial history, the United States from 1850-1900, historiography of the South, and the Old South. Woody directed thirty-two doctoral dissertations and at least fifty-eight master's theses. In 1937, Woody reduced his teaching load to part-time so that he could act as the director of the George Washington Flowers Collection of Southern Americana in the Duke University Library. Woody retired from the Department of History in 1970.

Woody took an active approach to documenting history on a personal and professional level. He recorded activities of his vacations, his thoughts on teaching, the Duke University academic climate (including the Gross-Edens Affair), and historical society meetings. Woody corresponded with Duke University colleagues and mentors in the history field: Arthur Hollis Edens, Paul M. Gross, William Preston Few, Francis B. Simkins, William K. Boyd, and William T. Laprade.

Woody published over 220 articles on the Civil War period, southern newspapers, the South, reconstruction, and North Carolina communities. Some article titles are: "The Labor and Immigration Problem of South Carolina During Reconstruction," "Christopher Gadsden and the Stamp Act," "The Army of Northern Virginia," and "Franklin J. Moses, Jr., Scalawag Governor of South Carolina." The culture of Western North Carolina mountain residents were described in his article "Catalochee Reunion." He also wrote significant biographies about William Preston Few, Francis Warrington Dawson, and Civil War statesmen.

Woody was a member of the American Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the South Carolina Historical Association, the Historical Society of North Carolina, and Phi Beta Kappa. Some of his books include: (1932), (1936), and (1951). He was also a contributor to the In 1942, he was selected to review Jule B. Warren's a textbook for use in public schools that was found to be riddled with errors.

Woody married Louise Wills in 1929. Their children are Dorothy Jean and Stephen Boyd. In 1983, Woody moved from Durham, N.C. to San Diego, California. He died in San Diego in 1985.