Based on real events, Mercy Street takes viewers beyond the battlefield and into the lives of a distinctive cast of characters - doctors, nurses, contraband laborers and Southern loyalists - realizing the chaotic world of Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia, and the Mansion House Hospital in the early years of the Civil War. Written by PBS

It’s 1882 and the Gilded Age is in full swing when Marian Brook, a young orphaned daughter of a Southern general, moves in with her rigidly conventional aunts in New York City. With the help of Peggy Scott, an African-American woman masquerading as her maid, Marian gets caught up in the dazzling lives of her rich neighbors as she struggles to decide between adhering to the rules or forging her own path.