From the National Republican (Washington, DC), 8/28/1862, p. 1, c. 2
Specimen of Rebel Brutality.
Major Cassidy, one of the recently released Union officers, from rebeldom, furnishes the following as one of the many acts of cruelty perpetrated by rebel fiends:
Capt. Warner, of the rebel service, commissary of the Libby prison at Richmond, was telling us one day a good joke of his. It appears that soon after the battle of Bull Run, a young Union soldier was brought into Dr. Higginbotham’s hospital, and there his leg was amputated just above the knee. Warner, who was present at the operation, obtained some India ink and a needle, and pricked into the remaining stumps, “This is Lincoln’s doings.” The poor fellow, insensible almost with pain, not having uttered a sound before, now groaned with agony to have been thus insulted, and be unable to resent it. This, Capt. Warner told us, in the presence of the Rev. Mr. Moore, of the Presbyterian Church of Richmond, who blushed with shame at the recital of the cruelty of this miserable ruffian. Captain Warner was born at Haverstraw, on the Hudson; left there when nine years of age; has a wife now somewhere in Illinois; and busies himself in gathering up all the union money he can from prisoners to send to his family at the North. This many rebels do. They all know their money is not worth a straw now, and never can be of any value.