Based on an idea by John Flaxman, it was inspired by a true story set in the New York Draft Riots of 1863. The title character, an Irish woman providing asylum for orphaned children of refugee slaves, is on the verge of marrying a Union Army colonel. Her vagabond husband Phineas Flynn (who abandoned her to pursue a theatrical career and whom she had presumed was dead) returns to the scene. The cast of characters includes Confederate insurgents, prostitutes and drunks, bigoted socialites, circus performers, and a passel of African-American kids endangered by the draft riots.