Gordon was born on October 5, 1836, in Pulaski, Tennessee. His father was Andrew Gordon and his mother, Eliza K. Gordon. He grew up in Mississippi and Texas. Gordon graduated from the Western Military Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1859. He worked on the Nashville & Northwestern Railway.[1]
At the start of the Civil War, Gordon enlisted in the military service of the Confederacy and became drillmaster of the 11th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, which saw action defending the Cumberland Gap during the winter and spring months of 1862. Gordon became regimental commander when James E. Rains assumed command of Carter L. Stevenson's brigade, and fought at the Battle of Tazewell on August 6, 1862. In November 1862 he became the regiment's colonel. Gordon was promoted to brigadier general in August 1864, and was one of the youngest Confederate generals.[2] Gordon led Vaughn's Brigade, in Maj. Gen.John C. Brown's division, at the Battle of Franklin (November 30, 1864), where he was wounded and captured. Many of the men he led are buried at McGavock Confederate Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee. Gordon was sent to the prisoner-of-war camp at Fort Warren until he was paroled in the summer of 1865.[3]
After the war, Gordon studied law at Cumberland University, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Memphis, Tennessee, until 1883.[3] He was appointed one of the railroad commissioners of Tennessee. He received an appointment in the Department of the Interior in 1885, as special Indian agent in Arizona and Nevada, and he served until 1889. He returned to Memphis and resumed the practice of law. He was the superintendent of Memphis city schools between 1889 and 1907.[1]
The KKK (the Klan) was formed by veterans of the Confederate Army in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 and soon expanded throughout the state and beyond. Gordon was an early initiate and likely wrote the organization's original Prescript[4] in 1867 and its revised edition[5] the following year. Following Gordon's death, his widow, Minnie, claimed that he had been the original Grand Wizard of the Klan and that it was he, not Nathan Bedford Forrest, who disbanded it.[3]
Cheathem, Mark R., and Emily J. Taylor. “Confederate General George Washington Gordon and the Ku Klux Klan.” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 67 (2013): 36-57.
Confederate States of America
Confederate States Army
