The hospital was built in the old Mansion House Hotel, an establishment also known as Green’s Hotel operated by James Green. By 1848, furniture manufacturer James Green had acquired the former Bank of Alexandria building to convert into a hotel. A four-story addition on the building’s east side was built around 1855. and made it the largest hotel in Alexandria. Green received a notice in early November 1861, stating he had three days to vacate the hotel.
Military hospital
On December 1, 1861, Mansion House Hospital was opened as a General Hospital. Parts of the nearby Bank of Alexandria building at 133 North Fairfax Street were also used as part of the hospital, as were parts of the Carlyle House behind the hotel. The hospital used female nurses, which by the spring of 1862, resulted in harsh treatment and prejudice towards nurses based on their gender. Nurses such as Mary Phinney, however, kept accounts and “helped set the stage for women not just in nursing, but in the medical profession as a whole.” In March 1862, there was a court case concerning conditions at The Mansion Hospital, concerning the behavior of surgeon J. B. Porter, after allegations of mistreatment of patients were published in the New-York Tribune and Washington National Republican on February 6, 1862. A Court of Assembly met on the issue in February 1862 led by General William H. French, and determined that the complaints were not valid, and that “the Court, from its own observation, cannot speak too highly of the condition of the Mansion Hospital, which is exhibited in the fact, that out of 500 patients, there have been but 32 deaths.” On September 20, 1862, people began using the hospital as a First Division General Hospital, and it was the largest of the confiscated buildings used as a military hospital in the city, out of 30 total converted hospitals in the city. It could hold up to 700 sick and wounded soldiers. The hospital was the largest Union hospital in the region, with 500 beds.
Following the surrender of the Confederacy on April 9, 1865, the Mansion House Hospital was returned to the Greens and reopened as a hotel. First again called the Mansion House Hotel, it was then acquired by new proprietors in the early 1880s and renamed Braddock House. By 1886, it was advertised as the only first-class hotel in the city. By the 1970s, the building was vacant and deteriorating. The Northern Virginia Park Authority acquired the entire property, and despite protests from some preservationists, in early 1973 a portion was torn down that decade to restore the nearby John Carlyle House and open area for the Carlyle House Historic Park. A part of the old hospital was, however, partly preserved in what is now an adjacent bank building.
Media
In 2016 PBS broadcast a miniseries, Mercy Street, set in the hospital. The PBS drama is set in 1862. Some of the characters are based on real historical figures associated with the hospital, for example the Green family and nurse Mary Phinney von Olnhausen.
