Mercy Street

Mercy Street, the new drama on PBS, explores the lives of two women on opposite sides of the Civil War in Alexandria, Virginia. As part of a project on the intersection of society and politics in Alexandria, Virginia (and Newport, Kentucky) in the mid nineteenth century, we collected all sorts of information on the lives of Alexandria locals, including Emma Green, on the eve of the Civil War.

Explore the lives of Mercy Street characters as they were in real life in the 1860s at www.emmaofalexandria.com.

Read about the life of Emma Green, her family, and her boyfriend Frank Stringfellow (click here for the pdf file).

Read Mary Phinney's diary documenting her experiences as a nurse in the Civil War.