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.
Joseph Jay Jones described them as "the Civil War written in sulfuric acid." Locke's fictional
alter ego, Nasby, loudly champions the cause of the
Confederate States of America from
Secession onward, but does little to actively help it. After being
conscripted into the
Union Army he deserts to the Confederates, joining the fictional "Pelican Brigade". However, he finds life in the
Confederate Army "tite nippin" and soon deserts again. By the end of the Civil War, he is back in civilian life. The Nasby Letters, although written in the semi-literate spelling used by other humorists of the time, were a sophisticated work of
ironic fiction. They were consciously intended to rally support for the Union cause; "Nasby" himself was portrayed as a thoroughly detestable character – a supreme
opportunist,
bigoted, work-shy, often half-drunk, and willing to say or do anything to get a
Postmaster's job. (Locke's own father had served as Postmaster of
Virgil, New York.) At the time the Letters were written, postmaster positions were political plums, offering a guaranteed federal salary for relatively undemanding work. Until the glorious day when he received a "Post Orfis" from
Andrew Johnson, Nasby worked, when he worked, most frequently as a preacher. His favorite biblical texts, unsurprisingly, were the ones that were used by Southern ministers to "prove" that
slavery was ordained by the
Bible.
Abraham Lincoln loved the Nasby Letters, quoting them frequently. Lincoln is reported to have said, "I intend to tell him if he will communicate his talent to me, I will swap places with him!". Lincoln even attempted to "initiate" the
Radical Republican U.S. Senator
Charles Sumner into Nasby's writing: "[L]aying aside official business for twenty minutes one day, [Lincoln] 'proceeded to read aloud, evidently enjoying it very much'" until the humorless Sumner begged off and left. After the Civil War, Nasby wrote about
Reconstruction. He settled in several different places, most notably "Confedrit X Roads, is in the Stait of Kentucky", a fictional town full of idle, whiskey-loving, scrounging ex-Confederates, and a few hard-working, decent folk, who by an amazing coincidence were all strong Republicans. He traveled frequently, sometimes not entirely voluntarily (Nasby's habit of borrowing money he never repaid, and running up tabs at the local
saloon often made him unpopular) and continued to comment on the issues of the day. Locke discontinued the Nasby Letters a few years before his death, since the times had changed and Nasby was no longer topical. While the semi-literate spelling in which they are written has often discouraged modern readers, it can also be seen as a point of characterizing "Nasby". Several collections of the Letters came out in book form, some illustrated by
Thomas Nast, who was a friend and political ally of Locke. After he and
Mark Twain saw an early
Remington typewriter in 1874, Nasby invested in a company that controlled its sale. ==Death==