The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics

In Short

This volume is a bound edition of The Atlantic Monthly from February 1866, functioning as a vibrant synthesis of literature, political commentary, and social critique. It captures a pivotal moment when the United States began to navigate the complex realities of post-war reconstruction. By blending personal slave narratives with analytical essays on British foreign policy and philosophical inquiry, the magazine offers a comprehensive view of the era’s anxieties. It remains significant as a primary vessel for the voices, prejudices, and aspirations that defined the American mid-nineteenth century.

The Story

The magazine unfolds as a multifaceted survey of a nation in transition. The opening political analysis examines how the American Civil War polarized English public opinion, revealing that many British observers initially doubted the morality of the North’s cause or the necessity of the carnage. This international perspective provides a backdrop for a more intimate, harrowing American story: a firsthand account of plantation life in Maryland. The narrator recounts his childhood in the "Quarter," where children were treated as property, and depicts his later life as a fugitive determined to protect others from the constant, looming threat of kidnappers. These accounts of systemic abuse contrast sharply with contemporary reports from the South, which describe a post-war landscape where the promised "mutual good-will" between former masters and enslaved people has curdled into open, bitter antagonism.

The narrative arc then shifts to the quiet, reflective observations of Nathaniel Hawthorne. His notebooks offer a change of pace, documenting a bachelor’s existence in Maine, filled with simple meals, encounters with eccentric philosophers, and poetic descriptions of the Kennebec River. This contemplative interlude gives way to a romantic, often ironic narrative about a man named Locksley who hides his significant wealth from the woman he loves, Esther Blunt. Their courtship is marked by witty, satirical exchanges about money and social expectation, culminating in a wedding that feels like a quiet, desperate retreat from the world.

The magazine’s final movements engage with the domestic and spiritual questions of the day. A column by "Mr. Crowfield" addresses the labor crisis in American households, where a young man struggles to find help for his overburdened wife, highlighting the strain on family life in a society reshaped by shifting labor markets. A separate fictional narrative introduces a tense, formal meeting between two rivals, Neville and Gaunt, who choose to navigate their conflict over a woman named Catharine through "peaceful arts" rather than bloodshed. This sequence mirrors the broader national struggle to move beyond the violence of the war. Finally, the volume turns toward the abstract, debating the nature of divine action and human morality, questioning whether current civilization is built upon absolute truths or merely relative social conventions. It concludes with a pragmatic list of recent publications, grounding these grand themes in the concrete reality of what Americans were actually reading at the time.

How It Unfolds

The international gaze The magazine begins by analyzing how the American conflict tested British political loyalties, noting that the war forced English writers and citizens to choose sides in a way that had become as common as traditional party politics.

The testimony of the oppressed A former slave provides a searing account of his early years in Maryland, detailing the constant threat of kidnapping and the desperate, violent resistance organized by the enslaved to protect their own families.

The shift to the personal The focus turns to the journals of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which capture the rhythms of a quiet life in rural Maine, offering a stark thematic contrast to the preceding accounts of institutional violence and political upheaval.

The courtship of secrets A narrative thread follows Mr. Locksley, who attempts to win the hand of Esther Blunt while withholding the truth about his immense fortune, leading to a complex exploration of sincerity and social artifice.

The domestic and spiritual crisis The magazine addresses the practical struggles of middle-class families attempting to navigate the new labor market, while simultaneously pondering the philosophical foundations of morality and whether God interacts with the world through universal laws or private intervention.

The People

Major William Brogdon, a Maryland slaveholder, represents the indifference of the antebellum elite, described as neither particularly cruel nor unusually kind, but entirely representative of a system that commodified human beings. His former slave, the narrator, stands in sharp contrast as a figure of resilience, driven by a vow to prevent any fellow human from being dragged back into bondage.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, appearing through his personal notes, acts as the quiet observer, his intellectual curiosity and appreciation for the "lonely touch" of a paddle in the water grounding the magazine in a meditative, human scale. In the fictional narrative, Mr. Locksley and Esther Blunt provide the emotional core; Locksley is a man who tries to mask his cynical view of the world with wit, while Esther is a woman of sharp intelligence who navigates her precarious social position with a blunt honesty that challenges Locksley’s pretensions.

Finally, Mr. Crowfield serves as the voice of the era’s social conscience, a mediator who attempts to reconcile the "domestic problem" of household management with the larger, systemic shifts in labor. Neville and Gaunt, the two romantic rivals, embody the hope for a post-war reconciliation, moving from the brink of fatal violence toward a measured, formal respect that suggests the possibility of civilized, if difficult, coexistence.

In Its Own Voice

"I am a Northerner," and "I am a Southerner," were, during the war, phrases as common on Englishmen's lips as "I am a Liberal" or "a Conservative."

The author describes the intense, partisan atmosphere in England regarding the American Civil War.

Kidnapping was so common, while I lived with the Doctor, that we were kept in constant fear.

The narrator reflects on the pervasive danger faced by the formerly enslaved, even when outside the direct control of a plantation.

We have the dearest little garden in the world, stretching down to the water's edge.

Captain Blunt describes his home to Mr. Locksley, revealing the modest, quiet life that the wealthy protagonist is about to enter.

What It's Really About

At its heart, this volume is an inquiry into the nature of freedom and the fragility of social order. It examines the uncomfortable tension between the American democratic ideal and the reality of a society built on the labor of the enslaved. It asks whether the "mutual good-will" claimed by a society is a genuine bond or merely a "monstrous sham." Beneath the anecdotes and fiction, the magazine probes the question of whether our modern civilization is founded on absolute, God-given morality or whether we are all—like the figures in its stories—merely relative, shifting entities trying to hide our secrets and our vulnerabilities behind a veneer of "respectability."

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the texture of history—the specific, unvarnished vocabulary and the genuine intellectual preoccupations of a society in shock—will find this collection deeply rewarding. It does not offer the smoothed-over narrative of a retrospective textbook; rather, it feels like listening to the messy, urgent debates of a country trying to understand what it has just become.

The prose is, at times, demanding and dense with the formal, high-minded rhetoric of the mid-nineteenth century. The occasional mention of period-specific attitudes, particularly regarding race and social class, can be jarring to a modern reader, as the excerpts occasionally reflect the era's own biases, even when critiquing them. Yet, there is a profound pleasure in the precision of the writing, from the quiet descriptions of the Maine river to the sharp, cynical humor of the courtship between Locksley and Esther. It is a book for those who want to feel the weight of a nation’s transition, capturing the exact moment when the old world had died and the new one had not yet been fully formed. It stays with you not as a set of answers, but as a series of honest, complex questions about how to build a life in the wake of a catastrophe.