One of the more curious oddities of the year 1860 was the publication of a novel entitled Anticipations of the Future: To Serve as Lessons for the Present Time. Although his name was omitted from the volume, the author was Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia planter who was a noted fire eater, the political activists who favored southern independence.

Anticipation of the Future is composed excerpts of letters written by an Englishman in the United States for publication in the Times of London over the y...