150-year wait may be over for Mexican War veterans

The bodies of 11 U.S. soldiers who fought in the Battle of Monterrey in 1846 have been recovered in Mexico, and Bedford County commissioners may join a Lipscomb University history professor in asking that they be brought back to Tennessee for burial at the Mexican War Monument in Gallatin.

Commissioner Joe Tillett, who spoke at Tuesday night's meeting of Bedford County Board of Commissioners' rules and legislative committee, read a July 9 opinion column in the Nashville Tennessean by Timothy D. Johnson, a history professor at Lipscomb, about the discovery of skeletal remains during a construction project in Monterrey, Mexico. The remains have been identified by Mexican archaeologists as soldiers from the army of Gen. Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War, and almost certainly members of the First Tennessee Volunteer Regiment, according to Johnson. No specific individuals have been identified.

Bedford County was one of eight counties which supplied volunteers for the regiment.

Mexican archaeologists have moved the remains to Mexico City for safekeeping, but so far, according to Johnson, the U.S. government has shown little interest in retrieving them for proper burial.

Johnson, in his column, asked for readers to contact their congressional representatives to suggest that the remains be brought back to Tennessee and buried at the Mexican War Monument in Gallatin, near other soldiers from that conflict....