NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – On Thursday afternoon, Middle Tennessee State University professor Dr. Hugh Berryman was just catching his breath after a whirlwind trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where he witnessed the remains of 13 soldiers, many who might be Tennessee volunteers, back on American soil for the first time in 148 years.
“It was a pretty exciting day and not only a long time coming for me, but really a long time coming for those men that died 170 years ago to come home,” Berryman told News 2 from his MTSU office after flying back to Tennessee earlier in the day.
Berryman and several members of Tennessee’s Washington delegation worked for five years to bring home the skeleton remains believed to Tennessee frontiersman who volunteered, then died in the often forgotten Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848.
The forensic anthropologist will lead a team from MTSU, who along with other scientists from around the country, will assist the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System in analyzing the remains of the soldier beginning almost immediately.
“It’s going be a very hard task to identify these individuals after 170 years, but if we can, wow,” said Berryman. “It’s a window into these American soldiers 170 years ago – who they were, where they came from and what they went through.”
The professor said his team will do most of the work at the Armed Forces facilities in Dover, but he hopes there might be some answers by the end of the year.
Representative Scott DesJarlais, Senator Lamar Alexander, Representative Jim Cooper and Senator Bob Corker were also involved in the effort to bring the remains back to the United States and finally to Tennessee.
