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,
12th Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry October 1864. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, Cavalry Corps, Military Division Mississippi, to December 1864. 2nd Brigade, 5th Division, Cavalry Corps, Military Division Mississippi, to February 1865. 1st Brigade, 5th Division, Cavalry Corps, Military Division Mississippi, to May 1865. Department of the Missouri to October 1865. The 12th Tennessee Cavalry mustered out of service at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on October 7, 1865. Scout to Florence, Ala., July 20–25, 1863 (detachment). Duty at Nashville and on Nashville & Northwestern Railroad at Pulaski, Tenn., until November 1864. Duck River April 22, 1864. Scout in Hickman and Maury Counties May 2–12. Lincoln County June