New TV Series to Air Based on Alexandria Civil War Life

England has Downton Abbey and now it looks like the United States may have its own historical PBS drama, based on Civil War life in Alexandria, Va.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Friday that PBS has selected Virginia as the filming location for a new Civil War TV series, described as a blend of hospital drama and family saga. It will mark the network’s first major series set in the United States in at least a decade, according to USA Today.

The drama series is inspired by the memoirs and letters of actual doctors and female nurse volunteers at Mansion House Hospital, a luxury hotel in Alexandria that was transformed into a Union Army hospital during the Civil War.

The show is expected to air Sundays and premiere next year some time after a 25th anniversary rebroadcast of one of PBS’s most-watched programs, Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary.

Here’s a description of the luxury Alexandria hotel from VisitAlexandria: “A grand hotel before the war, the building that once surrounded the Carlyle House was known as the Mansion House Hospital and could hold up to 700 sick and wounded soldiers. Nurse Mary Phinney described the constant flow of stretchers in and out of the hospital. The site’s Civil War history features many fascinating figures, including poet Walt Whitman, Confederate spy Frank Stringfellow, and Sarah Emma Edmonds, who disguised herself as a Union soldier.”

Based on true events, the drama will open in 1862 and follow two volunteer nurses on opposite sides of the Civil War, according to the news release from McAuliffe’s office: ”Mary Phinney is a staunch New England abolitionist while Emma Green is a willful young Confederate belle [whose family owned the hotel]. As the boundaries of medicine are being explored and expanded, the role of women is also broadening. Here, amongst the collision of a wartime medical drama and a family saga of conflicted loyalties and moral dilemmas, the series plays out a story of the highest stakes.”

To ensure historical accuracy, a group of historians and medical experts consulted on the development of the project including James Barber, a historian and curator at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery who received an MA in history from Virginia Tech. He is a lifelong Alexandrian and author of Alexandria in the Civil War.

The series was created by Lisa Q. Wolfinger (Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower) and David Zabel (ER), and executive produced by Ridley Scott and David W. Zucker.

The six-episode first season will film in the Richmond and Petersburg areas of Virginia in the late spring and is scheduled to debut in the winter of 2016. No word on whether filming will take place in Alexandria itself — a Virginia Film Office employee said Friday that producers have not completed location scouting. The title of the series and cast will be announced at a future date.

“We are proud to be hosting this series because it is a Virginia story and an American story of people who struggled to endure and prevail during one of the most divisive eras our nation has ever known,” McAuliffe said. “I enthusiastically welcome PBS and everyone involved in this important series to the Commonwealth. This new project from PBS will be an important contributor to the new Virginia economy, providing good jobs and increased revenue for state and local taxes.”

The series will be eligible for incentive funding. The exact amount will be based on expenditures in Virginia and certain deliverables to promote tourism in the Commonwealth. In 2013, Virginia’s film industry had an economic impact of $382.5 million, and it provided $19.4 million in state and local tax revenue for the Commonwealth.

PHOTO of hotel/Mansion House Hospital courtesy of Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority