John Bowie Strange (1823-1862) was born in 1823 in Fluvanna County, Virginia to Gideon Alloway Strange (1793-1838) and Harriet J. Magruder (1796-1829). When Virginia Military Institute (VMI) opened its doors to cadets on November 11, 1839, he was one of a small group who enrolled that first day.

Strange had the additional distinction of serving as the first cadet sentinel assigned to guard duty, replacing the militia that had previously been charged with guarding the stores held in the Lexington Arsenal. The tradition of guard duty continues to this day.

His classmate Edmund Pendleton later described the scene:

"When, on the 11th of November, 1839, the youthful band of raw and undisciplined cadets marched to the Institute hill to relieve Captain David E. Moore, who had up to that time guarded the arsenal and other public property there, it fell to the lot of young Strange to be the first to go on post as a sentinel. I doubt if he had ever seen a soldier or held a musket in his callow hands before. The business was as new to his comrades as to himself and of course he was the object of the careful observation of all. I well remember, as if it were an event of yesterday, how promptly and resolutely he obeyed the first order to duty, how impressed he seemed to be with the dignity of his new position, how erectly he held his musket with bayonet fixed, and how soldier-like was his posture." 

Strange graduated VMI in 1842 and pursued a career in education, serving as a teacher, the Principal of Norfolk (Virginia) Academy, and as Superintendent of the Albemarle Military Academy (Virginia). He married Agnes Gaines in the early 1850s and the couple had four children, including Agnes, Henry (VMI Class of 1873), Willoughby, and James (died in infancy).

During the Civil War, Strange served as Colonel of the 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment. He was killed at the Battle of South Mountain, Maryland, on September 14, 1862, and is buried at Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Strange is the author of one of the oldest cadet letters still in existence, which describes many aspects of early cadet life.