neighbors.: 41 four bodies taken by winchester medical college those killed during the raid human bodies for student dissection were in short supply.: 842 (see body snatchers.) they were only 30 miles (48 km) from harpers ferry, much closer than the next closest medical school, the richmond medical school, and there was a train every day. hearing of the ten killed during the raid, some students went down to harpers ferry in search of bodies. an anatomy faculty member may have accompanied the students. all sources report that the train stopped before harpers ferry, everyone had to get off, and the students found a body: on leaving the train in harpers ferry before it reached the station the students came across a dead body lying on the banks of the river, and, always looking for material for dissection, they packed it in a box and shipped it back to winchester. papers found on the body after it arrived at the college proved it to be the body of owen brown, the son of john brown. the body was prepared for dissection and used for teaching purposes.: 843 : 44 : 4 eventually they learned that owen brown was very much alive, and fighting in the union army, so the body had to be of one of john brown's two sons killed at harpers ferry, watson or oliver. (letters of both written to their wives have been published.) they never knew the identity of the second body they took, jeremiah anderson, who was identified by writers on the harpers ferry events. there are statements that the body of john henry kagi was also taken to winchester for dissection;: 296 : 300–301 but that thesis was dropped by the scholar that was advancing it. a plaque in north elba says his remains are there, together with the others. original burial site of oliver brown and seven others killed at harpers ferry. in any event, there being no refrigeration, the students could only take bodies that would be "used" right away. the remaining eight bodies of those killed during the raid, including that of oliver brown, were unwelcome in local cemeteries.: 125 after lying where they fell for over 24 hours, two black men, james mansfield and his brother-in-law james giddy, for $10 stacked the corpses in a "gruesome pile",: 79 loaded them on a wagon, drove them to the burial site, then put them into two "packing boxes".: 127 these were buried without marker, clergy, or ceremony in "an unusual place" (so it would be forgotten): across the shenandoah river from harpers ferry, in loudoun county. despite the lack of marker, one of the men who buried them, and two spectators, were still alive 40 years later, and in 1899 led those interested to the site.: 127 the remains were disinterred and reburied at the john brown farm in north elba, new york, in a single casket, since the remains in most cases could not be matched with names.: 300–302 the bodies of the son of brown and jeremiah anderson were packed into barrels,: 133 and the empty space filled with formaldehyde. they were then taken by the students back on the train from harpers ferry to winchester. dr. william p. mcguire (1846–1926), son of hugh holmes mcguire and younger brother of hunter holmes mcguire, was a student and an eyewitness. mrs. brown attempted to recover watson's body, but was unsuccessful. "when mrs. brown was given the body of her husband after his execution, she was granted permission to search for the bodies of her sons. one of them was traced to a medical college near winchester, va. ...the family made some effort to obtain the body which was said to be in this medical college, but the feeling against the agitators was so bitter that they made no progress, and only excited prejudice and derision." those hanged in charles town in addition to the 10 who died during the raid, seven others were captured, tried, convicted, and executed by hanging. in this case, since under virginia law a month had to pass between sentence and execution, and the trials and sentences were widely reported, the potential availability of bodies was known well in advance. on november 1, the day before john brown's sentencing, arthur e. peticolas, an anatomy professor from the medical college of virginia (since 1968 part of virginia commonwealth university), wrote to virginia governor henry a. wise and prosecutor andrew hunter requesting the heads of those executed in charles town, "for the collection in our museum", together with the bodies, if the latter could be transported for no more than $5 each. this was not unusual, and wise agreed to it, adding that any who were hung should not be buried in virginia.: 76 john brown's body john brown was executed on december 2. the physician lewis sayre wrote governor wise before the execution suggesting that brown's body be given to a medical school for dissection, so as to avoid having the body paraded as a "hero martyr".: 4 wise would have turned his body over to "surgeons" (anatomy professors), but "the abolitionist was far too famous and national sentiments were far too raw".: 76–77 the body was given to mrs. brown and she took it back to north elba and buried it, not without some concern about southern medical students in philadelphia stealing the corpse. shields green and john a. copeland shields green and john a. copeland, both black, were hung, along with 2 whites, on december 16. "they will be interred to-morrow on the spot where the gallows stands, though there is a party of medical students here from winchester who will doubtless not allow them to remain there long." copeland's parents read in a newspaper that their son's body was at the winchester medical college awaiting dissection. governor wise, whom they contacted, telegrammed that as free blacks, they could not enter the state of virginia, but they could send a white representative. james monroe, from oberlin, at their request went to inquire. the professors in the medical school unanimously agreed to return the body. however, a student representative called on monroe and said that the faculty could not return the body because it was not theirs to return, it belonged to the students who had gotten it: "sah," said he, "these gentlemen and i have been appointed a committee by the medical students to explain this matter to you. it is evident to us, sah, that you don't understand the facts in the case. sah, this nigger that you are trying to get don't belong to the faculty. he isn't theirs to give away. they had no right to promise him to you. he belongs to us students, sah. me and my chums nearly had to fight to get him. the richmond medical students came to charlestown determined to have him. i stood over the grave with a revolver in my hand while my chums dug him up. now, sah, after risking our lives in this way, for the faculty to attempt to take him from us is mo' 'an we can b'ar. you must see, sah, and the faculty must see, that if you persist in trying to carry out the arrangement you have made, it will open the do' for all sorts of trouble. we have been told that governor wise gave you permission to come into this state and get this nigger. governor wise, sah, has nothing to do with the matter. he has no authority over the affairs of our college. we repudiate any interference on his part. now, sah, that the facts are befo' you, we trust that we can go away with your assurance that you will abandon the enterprise on which you came to our town. such an assurance is necessary to give quiet to our people.": 170–171 the students had already broken into the dissection lab, stolen the bodies, and hidden them.: 78 a cemetery discovered in 1928, a barn was razed on the farm of "wealthy farmer and fruit grower" edward w. cather, presumably near cather's farm market, on route 50 west of winchester. while excavations to build a house were underway, a cemetery was found underneath the foundation of the former barn. in it there were not bodies or skeletons but loose human bones, enough of them to assemble several skeletons. "it is generally accepted that the bones were those of bodies dissected many years ago by students of the old winchester medical college." there was no identification with the bones and wmc's records were burned along with its building, so there is no way of knowing if any of the bones were from one of brown's negro raiders. there is also no note on what was done with the bones after they were dug up in 1928. what the union soldiers found at the college on march 11, 1862, the forces of then–major thomas "stonewall" jackson abandoned winchester. when union troops, under the command of general nathaniel banks, entered the city on the 12th, they found the winchester medical college empty. no lectures had been given "for a twelvemonth past", and in the summer of 1861 it had been used as a field hospital "by johnston". union troops found two things in the medical college which horrified and angered them. a negro boy tortured "on sunday last considerable excitement was caused by the discovery of the remains of a negro boy, about seven years of age, in the dissecting room of the college. the head had been removed, the feet cut off and the body mutilated, and although the college had not been occupied for many months, it was evident that the boy had not been dead more than a week." another report says the boy was 14, and was shot because he was "very jubilant to think that union troops were so near the town. a rebel soldier seeing him in such extasies about it shot him dead on the spot." his body was taken to the college; the soldier reporting said that it had been given to the doctors and the students; since the college was closed these were presumably the ones that lived in winchester, as the mcguires did. anatomical study would not explain the removal of his head, not typical of skeletal or anatomy studies. no more does it explain that his arms were cut off at the elbows, his legs at the knees, and his belly "ripped open lengthwise". it does not sound like the work of a doctor or medical student. the best interpretation is that if the boy were already dead, this was just a gory display for the arriving union doctors and soldiers to see. if the boy were still alive, it was torture. the college would have been examined immediately by the union doctors and other officers, as they did all buildings in winchester, in serious need of accommodation and hospital beds. the only possible explanation, given the known information, is that his body was left there in this condition to send a hateful message to the union men. kinney has suggested that what was in the dissecting room were "remains that the confederates had no time to bury".: 46 however, the confederates' evacuation of winchester was not sudden or rapid. and none of the first union visitors to the dissecting room mentions adult bodies, or dead soldiers. they would not have led a soldier to say he saw "terrible sights",: 45 "the most horrid thing that i ever did see". according to the same letter from winchester, the students and faculty had to leave with the withdrawing rebel troops, "for they committed all sorts of depredations on union people, and the negroes especially". the skin that the body of one of john brown's sons had been skinned in winchester and turned into an anatomical exhibit appeared in a newspaper as early as december 6, 1859, only four days after john brown's execution: he students at the winchester medical college...have skinned the body of one of brown's sons, separated the nervous and muscular and venous systems, dried and varnished them, and have the whole hung up as a nice anatomical illustration. some of the students wished to stuff the skin, others to make it