PBS Civil War Series 'Mercy Street' to Debut Sunday Night

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- ”Mercy Street,” a six-part PBS series about life during the Civil War in Alexandria, Virginia, will debut Sunday night. Making its entrance after Episode 3 of Downton Abbey’s final season, the program is the first U.S.-produced series by PBS in 10 years.

The City of Alexandria, located along the western bank of the Potomac River across from the nation’s capital, is prepared for its close-up with a series of special tours, events and exhibits geared to “Mercy Street.”

More than 150 years ago, the City voted to secede from the Union, on May 23, 1861. The next day, federal troops poured into the city, beginning a four-year occupation; Alexandria endured the longest military occupation by Union troops of any town during the conflict. During those years, local hotels and mansions stood in as hospitals during the conflict.

Inspired by memoirs and letters from real doctors and nurse volunteers at Mansion House Hospital, the PBS drama Sunday night (some have dubbed the series a cross between “M*A*S*H” and “Gone With the Wind”) reveals the stories of those struggling to save lives while managing their own hardships. The title is a fictional name given to the street that leads to Mansion House, a luxury hotel that stood in for a Union hospital during the Civil War.

The series follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War — New England abolitionist Mary Phinney (actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Confederate supporter Emma Green (newcomer Hannah James). The Green family’s luxury hotel in Alexandria has been transformed into Mansion House, a Union Army hospital tending to the war’s wounded.

A vital seaport during colonial times, Alexandria is George Washington’s hometown and part of the original Washington, DC. Thomas Jefferson entertained guests at Gadsby’s Tavern; Civil War general Robert E. Lee moved to Alexandria with his family when he was only four years old, and would eventually become one of the most famous figures in the American Civil War.

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Alexandria served as one of the largest slave trading ports prior to the Civil War, but once occupied by Union forces from the onset of the Civil War, the city was both vital in the defense of the nation’s capital and essential in the war effort as a transportation and hospital center for the Union.

Tours, Exhibits and Events in Alexandria Bring ‘Mercy Street’ to Life

The executive producer of “Mercy Street” noted in a press tour in Los Angeles with the Television Critics Association that many of the issues in the series are still pertinent today.

“The conversations that are going on with the characters in our show are still conversations that are going on in our country now,” one of the producers, David Zabel, noted, in a report by The Hollywood Reporter.

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“Mercy Street” is being brought to television by some big names in the business: Ridley Scott (“The Martian”) and David W. Zucker (“The Good Wife”) of Scott Free Productions, and Lisa Q. Wolfinger (“Desperate Crossing”) and Zabel (“ER”).

The ensemble cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Josh Radnor, Gary Cole, Norbert Leo Butz, McKinley Belcher III, Jack Falahee, AnnaSophia Robb and newcomer Hannah James.

To depict a realistic and accurate account of this era, the writers and producers collaborated with historians and medical experts, including James M. McPherson, Dr. Stanley Burns, Shauna Devine, Jane Schultz, George Wunderlich, director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Audrey Davis, director of the Alexandria Black History Museum, and Anya Jabour.

Watch a video promo here from PBS with some of the postings on social media about the production, which filmed in Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia.

IMAGE of “Mercy Street’ promotional poster courtesy of PBS; photo of Mansion House Hospital courtesy of the Library of Congress