by Marcus Washington
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - After 165 years, the remains of nearly a dozen fallen soldiers could make their way back home to Tennessee. The discovery of the remains came three months ago in Mexico.
"While Americans have largely forgotten this conflict, Mexicans have not," said Tim Johnson, Lipscomb University history professor.
The Mexican-American War came at a time of the annexation of Texas into American territory.
"525,000 square miles were transferred from Mexico to the United States," Johnson said.
Thousands of soldiers from Tennessee volunteered to fight, many losing their lives for our growing country.
"Veterans returning thought this was the big event of the century, this is going to be remembered forever. A decade later along comes the civil war and it overshadows everything that came before," said Johnson.
More than a century has passed, but the fallen heroes buried on foreign land were found in Monterrey, Mexico.
"This is where the first Tennessee was fighting. We know that a couple dozen Tennesseans were killed in the fighting in that particular area," Myers Brown, curator at the Tennessee State Museum said.
Anthropologists unearthed 11 soldier remains in area being prepped for a new apartment complex.
"There are a number in the state, particularly the cemetery in Gallatin where there are members of this same regiment buried already and there is a Mexican-American monument there," said Brown.
Johnson adds, "There may be some momentum building that, I think the chances look real good of it happening."
Many people feel those remains should be taken to Gallatin, where many of the fallen soldiers of the First Tennessee regiment are buried.
There is also a monument to those lost during the Mexican-American war in the city's cemetery.
Email: mwashington@newschannel5.com
