Emma Green (nurse)

This article is about the nurse. For the athlete, see Emma Green (athlete). For other uses, see Emma Green.
Emma Green, a southern belle, volunteered as a nurse during the American Civil War.

Emma Green (1843-1929) was a white southern woman who volunteered as a nurse when the Union seized her family's hotel to serve as a hospital, during the American Civil War.[1][2]

Life

Emma Green was born into a wealthy and socially aspiring family of British descent in Alexandria, Virginia. She was raised a devout Episcopalian. Her family initially had pro-Union sympathies, but increasingly sided with the Confederates as the Civil War progressed.

During the war, Green's fiancé Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Stringfellow operated as a Confederate spy.[1][2] It is possible that Green assisted in the espionage.[3] Green and Stringfellow wed after the war, and had four children together: Ida (b. 1867), Alice Lee (b. 1871), Frank (b. 1881) and John Stanton (b. 1883).

Cultural legacy

In 2016, PBS broadcast Mercy Street, a six-part series based on the hospital in the Green family hotel.[2][4][5] A fictionalised version of Emma Green is a key character in the series.


References

  1. 1 2 Don DeBats, Margaret-Ann Williams (2016). "Emma Green: The Making of a Southern Identity". University of Virginia. Retrieved 2016-02-27. Over the next three years, Emma and her family, influenced by family ties and by the events of a war that engulfed them, slowly transferred their loyalty from the Union to the Confederacy.
  2. 1 2 3 "Madison-born actress stars in new PBS Civil War drama, 'Mercy Street'". Culpeper Star Exponent. 2015-05-22. Retrieved 2016-01-19. Green was the consummate Southern belle who, distressed at the treatment of Confederate wounded, volunteered as a nurse at Mansion House Hospital, established by the Union on the site of her family's luxury hotel in Alexandria. She was also the sweetheart of Confederate spy Frank Stringfellow, a Culpeper County native. After the war, the two married and lived at Woodberry Forest School, a few miles from where James' training as an actress took root.
  3. ↑ "Emma Green: The Making of a Southern Identity". Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  4. ↑ "Sneak peek Friday of PBS drama featuring Madison-born actress". Culpeper Star Exponent. 2015-11-05. Retrieved 2016-01-19. Her character, Emma, is the oldest daughter of the prominent Green family of Alexandria, where they once owned the luxurious Mansion House Hotel that became a Union hospital during the Civil War. Emma, in addition, was the sweetheart of Culpeper County’s own Confederate scout, Frank Stringfellow, played by Jack Falahee in the series. As the war encroaches on her family business, Emma decides to become a volunteer nurse.
  5. ↑ Andrew Stone (2015-12-26). "A Star from the start". New You magazine. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
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