Pulaski, Tennessee the vicinity of Pulaski was the site of a number of skirmishes during the Franklin–Nashville Campaign. Union troops occupied the state from 1862. In 1863, Confederate courier Sam Davis was hanged in Pulaski by the Union Army on suspicion of espionage. In late 1865, during the early days of the Reconstruction Era, the city was the site of founding the first Ku Klux Klan (KKK) by six Tennessee veterans of the Confederate Army. John C. Lester, John B. Kennedy, James R. Crowe, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, and J. Calvin Jones established the KKK in Pulaski on December 25,
Casimir Pulaski and already on October 29, 1779, the United States Congress passed a resolution that a monument should be dedicated to him, but the first monument to him was not built until 1854. A bust of Pulaski was added to a collection of other busts of American heroes at United States Capitol in 1867. On May 11, 1910, US President William Taft revealed a Congress-sponsored General Casimir Pulaski statue. In 1929, Congress passed another resolution, this one recognizing October 11 of each year as "General Pulaski Memorial Day", with a large parade held annually on Fifth Avenue in New York City.