Virginia

New PBS Series ‘Mercy Street,' Set in Alexandria, Premieres Sunday

Visitors can explore the sites that inspired the show

PBS' new Civil War-era series "Mercy Street," set in Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia, is premiering 10 p.m. Sunday.

The show follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposite sides of the conflict, New England abolitionist Mary Phinney (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Confederate Emma Green (Hannah James).

A border town between the North and the South, Alexandria was the melting pot of the region, where personal stories of the Union and Confederacy converged, and the city's largest hotel, the Mansion House, was converted into its largest Union hospital.

Inspired by real events, the series delves more into the chaos inside the Mansion House Hospital than on the front lines of battle.

The series' digital premiere launched Thursday, and the broadcast will air Sunday at 10 p.m.

Visitors can get a closer look at the stories of the real-life soldiers, doctors and nurses who inspired "Mercy Street" through a number of guided and self-guided tours at Alexandria's historic sites, including the Green family's Carlyle House and the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum.

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