# Nathan Bedford Forrest

nathan bedford forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, noted for his aggressive cavalry tactics and rapid rise from private to general, and later served briefly 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 directly involved in the interstate slave trade, including operating a slave jail in Memphis. In June 1861, shortly after the Civil War began with the splitting of the United States into the Union and the Confederacy, Forrest enlisted in the Confederate Army.