The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics

In Short

This July 1866 issue of The Atlantic Monthly captures an anxious, vibrant America recovering from civil war while stepping into a bold modern age. Across its pages, personal tragedy meets national rebuilding through a blend of fiction, scientific essays, war memoirs, and political critique. An injured soldier confronts the loss of his physical self, lovers navigate family wrath, Union troops retreat through Tennessee mud, and naturalists trace ancient glaciers through South America. It endures as a vivid, unfiltered portrait of a nation rethinking its identity, its land, and its moral purpose at a historical crossroads.

The Story

The volume opens with the harrowing account of George Dedlow, a wounded soldier who loses his limbs to battle and finds his very sense of self evaporating with his missing flesh. His inward struggle sets a tone of quiet reckoning that echoes through the issue's narrative pieces. In contrast, the serialized fiction turns to intimate human dramas. A young lover named Hobert braves a stormy night with his beloved Jenny, seeking to shelter her under his coarse cloak while dreading the anger of her tyrant father, who waits at the garden gate threatening to haul her home behind his horse. Elsewhere, the heavy, tangled romance of Griffith Gaunt unfolds as he lives a double life, secretly married to the devoted Mercy Vint while tormented by jealousy over his distant wife, Kate, and her past ties to a local priest.

Beyond private hearths, the scene shifts to the wide, brutal canvas of the Civil War. Union soldiers record their desperate maneuvers through Eastern Tennessee, marching on double-quick time to hold rail fences against advancing Rebel forces, pouring volleys into the woods, and mourning fallen comrades as they cover the army's retreat toward Knoxville.

As the physical battles wane, intellectual and cultural inquiries take center stage. Naturalists look outward to the physical world: Louis Agassiz explores the vast valley of the Amazons, measuring tropical mountain ranges and offering bold theories that ancient cosmic glaciers once swept across South America just as they did in Europe. Across the Atlantic, a traveler rambles through the picturesque, quaint streets of Normandy, taking refuge in small country inns, observing local political fetes staged by imperial officials, and reflecting on the quiet presence of French exiles like Victor Hugo living under British protection in the Channel Islands.

Meanwhile, social critics turn their eyes inward to the habits and failings of American domestic life. Commentators lambast the suffocating air of packed railway cars and unventilated schoolrooms, where citizens foolishly shut out fresh air as if it were poison. Reminiscences of black domestic workers in old family kitchens highlight a deep nostalgia for childhood comfort and lost homes. Finally, the volume turns to the urgent questions of national Reconstruction, reviewing works on the abolition of slavery, the nature of Northern versus Southern civilizations, and the moral duty to lift up emancipated people. The issue closes on a note of vigilance, warning that true peace requires dismantling the lingering tools of oppression.

How It Unfolds

A veteran loses his physical self After sustaining catastrophic injuries in battle, a surviving soldier lies in a hospital bed realizing that losing half his body has dimmed his very consciousness of individuality. He contemplates how much of a human being can be stripped away before a person is reduced to a purely vegetative existence.

Lovers face the midnight gate Hobert walks Jenny home through the falling rain, wrapping his cloak around her as they make grand promises for their future together. Their dream breaks when they spot her harsh parents waiting furiously at the gate to punish her for staying out late.

Union troops make a stand at the fence A regiment forms a battle line behind a rail fence to cover a retreating army, opening fire on enemy lines emerging from the woods. They pivot rapidly to repel an flank attack before receiving the order to withdraw under heavy fire, leaving a beloved lieutenant dead on the field.

A scientist traces ancient ice in the tropics Louis Agassiz explores the Amazonian interior, taking barometric readings of unexpected mountain peaks and arguing that an ancient cosmic ice age extended into the Southern Hemisphere. He anticipates fierce opposition from his scientific peers but remains confident that geological evidence will prove him right.

A wanderer samples Norman life An English traveler explores quiet French towns, admiring picturesque timber houses, ancient tapestries, and country inns while noting how local officials throw elaborate fetes to distract the populace from political aspirations. He visits the Channel Islands, reflecting on the sacred right of asylum granted to exiled thinkers.

A repentant husband accepts a bag of gold Griffith Gaunt, weighed down by debt and guilt over his secretive second marriage, returns home to find his first wife, Kate, overflowing with forgiveness. She thrusts a heavy bag of saved gold into his hands, urging him to ride out instantly to clear his debts and uphold his honor.

A reviewer demands spiritual truth A literary critic examines new theological and anti-slavery writings, insisting that moral teaching alone cannot sustain a faith or a society. He argues that true national progress requires a complete rejection of past tyrannies and a fearless commitment to human equality.

The People

• George Dedlow: A severely wounded soldier who survives the loss of multiple limbs. He wants to understand his remaining identity, but stands hindered by the profound psychological numbness caused by his destroyed nerve endings, ultimately finding himself reduced to a twilight state of existence.
• Hobert: A tender, devoted young lover who wants nothing more than to protect his sweetheart, Jenny, from a harsh world. His poverty and timid nature stand in his way, leaving him trembling when confronted by her domineering father.
• Griffith Gaunt: A conflicted, impetuous husband torn between two wives and consumed by irrational jealousy. He wants peace of mind and financial redemption, but his own impulsiveness and secret bigamy constantly derail his happiness until his wife Kate offers him a chance at grace.
• Kate Gaunt: Griffith’s noble, deeply passionate first wife. She wants to prove her undying loyalty and protect her husband's honor, overcoming his bitter suspicions by saving her money to rescue him from ruin.
• Louis Agassiz: An ambitious, resolute naturalist who wants to prove that the ancient ice age was a global phenomenon reaching the equator. He faces the skepticism of the international scientific establishment, but remains utterly convinced of his cosmic geological theory.

In Its Own Voice

"At times the conviction of my want of being myself was overwhelming, and most painful. It was, as well as I can describe it, a deficiency in the egoistic sentiment of individuality."

An injured soldier reflects on the psychological horror of surviving severe amputations.

"I bask before the old-fashioned hospitable fireplace, capacious and embracing, and jolly with its old-fashioned hickory blaze, and the fat old-fashioned kettle hung upon the old-fashioned crane..."

A narrator recalls the physical warmth and safety found in a childhood kitchen guarded by a beloved domestic worker.

"The despite and hatred which most men seem to feel for God's gift of fresh air, and their resolution to breathe as little of it as possible, could only come from a long course of education..."

A reformer laments the absurd American habit of sealing up railway cars and public halls against fresh air.

What It's Really About

At its core, this volume wrestles with the cost of bodily and political disruption. Written in the immediate wake of the American Civil War, the collection repeatedly asks how individuals and societies put themselves back together after profound trauma. Through medical sketches, war narratives, and political reviews, it examines the fragile boundary between the physical body and the human spirit, wondering how much a person—or a nation—can lose while still retaining a soul. Beneath its surface lies a deep debate over progress: whether true healing comes from clinging to cozy, romanticized visions of the past or from fearlessly embracing new scientific truths, social reforms, and moral accountability.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers a captivating, unvarnished window into the mindset of 1866 America. It appeals to history enthusiasts, lovers of Victorian literature, and anyone fascinated by how a society processes collective grief and rapid change. Reading it feels like sitting in an armchair during a turbulent era, listening to the smartest, most eloquent voices of the day debate everything from wilderness exploration to public health and the ethics of reconstruction.

The collection does carry the friction of its era. Readers must navigate Victorian literary mannerisms, lengthy descriptions of forgotten European local politics, and complex period debates. Sentences can be long and formal, and some pieces reflect mid-nineteenth-century social assumptions that feel distant today. Yet these friction points are precisely what make the volume so rewarding. What stays with you is the striking modernness of its anxieties: the struggle to preserve basic human dignity, the fear of bad air and poor health, the awe of natural discovery, and the urgent demand for moral justice in a broken world.