The Americans

The Americans is set during the American Civil War, the series focuses on two brothers fighting on opposite sides of the conflict. The series was inspired by James Warner Bellah's 1953 novel The Valiant Virginians which was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post as Tales of the Valorous Virginians from May 9, 1953 through June 10, 1954. The novel is an arc of separate stories on the impact of the war on the young men fighting it.