Mercy Street [PBS]

Josh Radnor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Gary Cole and Cherry Jones are among the eclectic cast of new Civil War drama Mercy Street – the first American drama to air on PBS in more than a decade. Additionally, directors Roxann Dawson and Jeremy Webb have joined the project, from Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Thelma & Louise) and David W. Zucker (The Good Wife) of Scott Free, and Lisa Wolfinger (Desperate Crossing, The Untold Story Of The Mayflower) and David Zabel (ER).

Mercy Street follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War — New England abolitionist Mary Phinney and Confederate supporter Emma Green. The Green family’s luxury hotel in Alexandria, VA, has been transformed into Mansion House, a Union Army hospital tending to the war’s wounded. The series, being shot in the Richmond and Petersburg, VA areas, is inspired by memoirs and letters from real doctors and nurse volunteers at the hospital in Alexandria, the longest occupied Confederate city of the war.

Deadline