SOURCE G I have never recognised the present government in Tennessee. If the militia are called out and do not interfere with anyone, I do not think there will be any fight. If they commit outrages upon the people, they and the Governor, Mr Brownlow, and his government will be swept out of existence; not a radical will be left alive. If the militia are called out, we will see it as a declaration of war because Mr Brownlow has already issued his order directing them to shoot down the Ku Klux Klan, and he calls all southern men Ku Klux Klan. There is such an organisation all over the South with about 550000 men. I intend to kill radicals and if trouble should break out, not one of them will be left alive. From an interview between General Forrest and a journalist, August 1868. Twice, Forrest denied saying most of what is in this interview – when it was published, and in 1871 during his testimony to the Ku Klux Klan hearings in Washington. Forrest was the first 'Grand Wizard' of the Ku Klux Klan.