David Ross Locke

David Ross Locke (also known by his pseudonym Petroleum V. Nasby) (September 20, 1833 – February 15, 1888) was an American journalist and early political commentator during and after the American Civil War.

Locke was born in Vestal, Broome County, New York, the son of Nathaniel Reed Locke and Hester Locke.

He was apprenticed at age 12 to the newspaper, the Democrat in Cortland County, New York.

Following a seven-year apprenticeship, he tramped around until his next protracted stay, with the Pittsburgh Chronicle. Around 1855, Locke started, with others, the Plymouth, Ohio Herald. On March 20, 1856, he became the editor of the Bucyrus Journal.

Locke was in Bucyrus, Ohio when the Civil War broke out. During the war, he edited and wrote for the Toledo Blade in Toledo, Ohio, which he purchased in 1867.

Locke died on February 15, 1888, in Toledo.

Locke's most famous works, the "Nasby Letters", were written in the character of, and over the signature of "Rev. Petroleum V(esuvius) Nasby", a Copperhead and Democrat. They have been described as "the Civil War written in sulphuric acid".

Locke's fictional alter ego, Nasby, loudly championed the cause of the Confederate States of America from Secession onward, but did little to actively help it. After being conscripted into the Union Army he deserted to the Confederates, joining the fictional "Pelican Brigade". However, he found life in the Confederate Army "tite nippin" and soon deserted again. By the end of the Civil War he was back in civilian life.

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