Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 - October 29, 1877) was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret vigilante organization which launched a reign of terrorism against African-Americans, Northerners that had moved to the postwar South, Southerners who supported the Union, and Republicans during the Reconstruction era in the Southern United States.