Otho French Strahl

Strahl was a Northerner who fought for the Confederacy. Born in Ohio and a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, he was shaped by grandmothers raised in the South into an ardent supporter of states' rights. He read law in Somerville, opened a Dyersburg practice in 1858, and raised a company there in 1861. He rose to brigade command. At Franklin on November 30, 1864, he was shot while leading men on foot. His body lay on the back porch of the Carnton plantation house before burial near the field, and in 1901 he was reburied in Dyersburg.

What the plaque says

Otho French Strahl Born in Ohio, he came to Dyersburg and practiced law before secession. In 1861 he raised here a company of the 4th Tenn. Infantry for the Confederacy. Winning successive promotion to the grade of brigadier general, he was killed leading his brigade at the Battle of Franklin, Nov. 30, 1864. He is buried here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Davy Crockett Cabin — 14 mi
  A restored cabin and museum in Rutherford for the last Tennessee home of David Crockett, who broke with Andrew Jackson over Indian removal.
• Reelfoot Lake State Park — 17 mi
  A shallow cypress lake in the northwest corner of Tennessee, left by the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes and fought over by the Night Riders in 1908.
• Carl Perkins Visitors Center — 19 mi
  A restored caboose in Tiptonville telling the story of Carl Perkins, the sharecropper's son from Lake County who wrote Blue Suede Shoes.
• Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  The federal refuge around Reelfoot Lake, with a visitor center, a 3.5-mile auto tour, viewing towers and canoe trails, on land the Chickasaw gave up in 1818.

More markers nearby

• Banks P. Turner — 8.7 mi
• WW II Mid-Air Collision — 11 mi
• Bruce High School — 14 mi
• General Clifton Bledsoe Cates — 19 mi