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,
Pulaski County, Virginia second wife Elizabeth Hoge. Eliza died 2 hours after James' birth, and his maternal grandparents brought him the 300 miles back to Pulaski County and reared him here. His grandparents were General James F. Hoge and Eleanor Haven Howe, and they owned what is now known as Belle-Hampton estate. James lived with his grandparents until he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861, and served until the end of the war, when he was paroled at Appomattox. After the war, he returned to Pulaski to farm, and became interested in politics. In 1877 he was chosen as Senator for the