Born in 1832, Otho French Strahl grew up in Malta Township, Morgan County, Ohio. After attending Ohio Wesleyan University and teaching in a schoolhouse on this site, he moved to Tennessee and became a successful attorney and landowner. Following the attack on Fort Sumter and President Abraham Lincoln’s call to arms, he chose to remain with his adopted state and fight for it. Despite his northern roots, he was elected captain of the Dryers Guards, his local Tennessee volunteer unit. Two years later he became a brigadier general in the Confederate army and served with distinction in some of the Civil War’s bloodiest battles. At age 32, he was one of six Confederate generals killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Franklin. Before the attack on the Federal defenses at Franklin ordered by Confederate General John Bell Hood, Strahl had a premonition of his own death and gave his prized mare, Lady Polk, to his friend Chaplain Charles Quintard. Strahl was killed in the assault, as was Lieutenant John Marsh, a former student who had asked to serve under his command. Quintard personally saw to Marsh’s burial and rode Lady Polk for the rest of the war, later selling the horse and using the proceeds to commission a stained glass window in Saint James Episcopal Church in Bolivar, Tennessee, memorializing General Strahl and Lieutenant Marsh. Strahl is buried in Old City Cemetery in Dryersburg, Tennessee.