Mercy Street is a Civil War period drama from Executive Producer Ridley Scott and PBS. It features great performances from Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 10 Cloverfield Lane).
The show is based on real events and follows the lives of hospital workers in the Mansion House Hospital in Union occupied, Alexandria, Virginia. The location and circumstances make for a wonderful setting to get many sides of the extremely tumultuous time for our country. The hospital is Union run in Confederate territory, and the Mansion House is a hotel owned by the local Green family, which is gradually becoming a house divided with family members sympathizing with both sides of the national conflict.
While some Mansion House Hospital workers are trying desperately to save whatever lives they can, regardless of their patient’s allegiance, others are bringing the conflict between the states into the operating rooms and hospital floors. Quarrels among hospital staff range from petty squabbles, to life-threatening fights, carried over from famous battles taking place nearby. And while many African-Americans still find themselves as slaves during the ongoing conflict, others are trying to figure out their newfound freedom and learning to live with their new titles as “contraband”.
The show gets to make references to historical figures, like Florence Nightingale and Frederick Douglas, with surprise appearances of historical figures too. And the PBS-Mercy Street webpage has some wonderful extras with real pictures of characters from the show and other context providing material.
And then there’s the whole Civil War-era medicine aspect of the show. Mercy Street does an amazing job of depicting just how much these doctors and nurses accomplished with so little, and the way they humanize the characters is really endearing. Showing the staff dealing with everyday struggles similar to ours today while still performing their duties inside of that great struggle makes their successes seem even more incredible.
Although the seasons are only 6 episodes and there are only 2 seasons so far (both available on Amazon Prime), each episode moves the story along nicely without dragging along. And the further along in the series, the further along in the war and the more you see the brutality of war taking its toll on the hospital, the land, families and individuals.
I’ve studied the Civil War since I was a kid; while most other kids my age were coloring in regular kid coloring books and going to places like Disneyland, I was visiting battle sites like Vicksburg and Shiloh and going to town on coloring books with Civil War soldier uniforms and rifles and tracing Confederate and Union unit movements on battlefield maps. This show manages to captivate my fascination with a wonderful combination of history, medicine and drama, unlike many other period pieces around right now.
TL;DR- M*A*S*H meets Glory; Mercy Street is a must-see for those who appreciate well-told stories of the complicated struggles within the Civil War.
-Morgan@1063RL