Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general, noted for his aggressive cavalry tactics and rapid rise from private to general during the American Civil War. After the war, Forrest was inaugurated
Forrest in uniform, c. 1862
The brothers Forrest, left to right: N. B. Forrest, William H. Forrest, Jesse A. Forrest (photographed after the civil war), and Jeffrey E. Forrest; there may be no surviving photographs of Aaron H. Forrest and John N. Forrest
N. B. Forrest, his 15-year-old son W. M. Forrest, and his 25-year-old brother J. E. Forrest all enlisted in the Confederate States Army on the same day; Jeffrey Forrest was killed in action at the Battle of Okolona in 1864 ("Capt. William M. Forrest With a Group of the Members of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Staff" Memphis Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1908)
Col. Bedford Forrest carte de visite by Bingham & Brothers Gallery of Memphis (Steve and Mike Romano Collection, Military Images)
The First Klan is a retronym which is used to describe the first of three distinct operational eras in the history of the Ku Klux Klan, a White supremacist domestic terrorist group in the United State
Nathan Bedford Forrest
…tactics and rapid rise from private to general during the American Civil War. After the war, Forrest was inaugurated as the first Grand Wizard of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan. Before the Civil War, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and cotton plantation owner, and was also…
"White Leagues and the KKK, worse than slavery" by Thomas Nast, 1874
"R. J. Brunson of Pulaski, Tennessee, aged 82. He was part of the original Klan and is wearing an original robe," image published in 1924 (Tennessee Virtual Archive)
Klansmen Dr. C. Kendrick and J.S. McFall c. 1870 (inset, top) and c. 1910 (Missouri Historical Society P0084-0799)
Ku-Klux warning message from Mississippi