Petroleum V Nasby

Petroleum V. Nasby pseud. of David Ross Locke, 1833-88, American journalist and satirist, b. Vestal, N.Y. Locke was editor of the Findlay, Ohio, Jeffersonian when he first became prominent by publishing (1861) in it the Nasby letters. The writer, Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, was ostensibly an ignorant, violently prejudiced, proslavery sympathizer, and the letters, which caught the fancy of readers from Lincoln down, were of aid to the Union cause in the Civil War. The letters soon appeared in the Toledo Blade, of which Locke became editor and part owner in 1865. He subsequently wrote Nasby letters as satiric propaganda for other causes. The Nasby letters were collected in various volumes including Swingen Round the Circle (1866) and The Nasby Letters (1893).

Bibliography: See biographies by C. Clemens (1936) and J. M. Harrison (1969).

Nasby, Petroleum V., pseudonym of D.R. Locke.

Locke, David Ross (1833–88), born in New York state, became an itinerant printer and journalist mainly in Ohio, where he achieved fame during the Civil War as a humorist under the pseudonym Petroleum V. Nasby. The first Nasby letter appeared in the Findlay Jeffersonian (March 21, 1861), of which he was editor. “Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, late pastor uv the Church uv the New Dispensation, Chaplain to his excellency the President, and p. m. at Confederate x roads, kentucky,” was a dissolute, illiterate country preacher, who intended to support the South by his foolish arguments and “advenchers,” but ironically made its cause appear ludicrously inept. In his caricature of this stupid and corrupt Copperhead, Locke followed the humorous style of Artemus Ward, using the devices popular among literary comedians of the time; ridiculous spellings, deformed grammar, monstrous logic, puns, malapropisms, incongruous juxtaposition of ideas, and anticlimax. In 1865 he became editor of the Toledo Blade, and later its owner, contributing to it his immensely popular letters until his death. Lincoln greatly admired Locke's humor, and even read the latest Nasby letters to his cabinet, as comic relief, before outlining the Emancipation Proclamation. The Nasby Papers (1864) was the first of several collections, and Locke also published a political novel, The Demagogue (1891), and other writings on politics, especially in favor of liquor prohibition.