Francis Fesmire (born 16 November 1959) is an emergency physician and nationally recognized expert on issues relating to heart attacks. He resides with his wife and two sons in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His interest in the Civil War began at age 5 when his parents built a house on Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, right in the midst of the battlefield. His passion for Southern literature developed while he attended Baylor High School in Chattanooga and has continued to the present. While studying under Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Coles at Harvard during his junior year of college, Francis Fesmire realized then that someday he wished to be a physician writer in the tradition of Walker Percy, William Carlos Williams, and Ferrol Sams -- but he knew that day would be in the distant future. Walker Percy once told Francis Fesmire: “I’m a physician who became distracted by my writing.” Francis Fesmire can now say: “I’m a writer who became distracted by being a physician.”