Brigadier General Otho French Strahl,
P.A.C.S.
General Otho French Strahl, one of the choicest spirits that embraced the
cause of the South, and finally offered all upon her altar, was a native of
Ohio, who had settled in Tennessee and was practicing law at Dyersburg
when the great war of States began. Although of Northern birth, both of
his grandmothers were Southern women, and perhaps had much to do with
moulding their sentiments which made him such an ardent sympathizer with
the South. When Tennessee was making ready to cast in her lot with the
Southern Confederacy, the young lawyer entered the Fourth Tennessee
regiment as a captain (May, 1861). Early in 1862 he became lieutenant
colonel of the regiment. As such he shared in the hardships of the
regiment. As such he shared in the hardships and glories of the campaigns
of Shiloh, Bentonville, and Murfreesboro, in which he so conducted himself
as to be promoted to colonel early in 1863, and then to the rank of
brigadier-general, July 28, 1863. In the hundred days' campaign from
Dalton to Atlanta in 1864, he and his men added to their already
magnificent record. Mr. S. A. Cunningham, who was a boy soldier in his
brigade at Franklin, November 30, 1864, has given in his magazine a
graphic account of the conduct and death of his commander that fateful
day. Mr. Cunningham being that day right guide to the brigade, was near
Strahl in the fatal advance, and was pained at the extreme sadness in his
face. he was surprised, too, that his general went into battle on foot. The
account of Mr. Cunningham continues: "I was near General Strahl, who
stood in the ditch and handed up guns to those posted to fire them. I had
passed to him my short Enfield (noted in the regiment) about the sixth time.
The man who had been firing, cocked it and was taking deliberate aim when
he was shot, and tumbled down dead into the ditch upon those killed before
him. When the men so exposed were shot down, their places were supplied
by volunteers until these were exhausted, and it was necessary for General
Strahl to call for others. He turned to me, and though I was several feet
back from the ditch, I rose up immediately, and walking over the wounded
and dead took position, with one foot upon the pile of bodies of my dead
fellows and the other upon the embankment, and fired guns which the
general himself handed up to me, until he, too, was shot down." The
general was not instantly killed, but soon after received a second shot and
then a third which finished the fearful work. "General Strahl was a model
character, and it was said of him that in all the war he was never known to
use language unsuited to the presence of ladies." While the army was
camped at Dalton on the 20th of April, 1864, services were held in the
Methodist church by Bishop Charles Todd Quintard, of the Episcopal church.
On this occasion Bishop Quintard baptized General Strahl and presented him
to Bishop Stephen Elliott for confirmation, with three other generals of the
Confederate army--Lieutenant General Hardee and Brigadier-Generals Shoup
and Govan.
Source: Evans, Clement, ed. Confederate Military History, Vol.
VIII, Confederate Publishing Company, Atlanta, GA, 1899
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