Benjamin Harvey Hill

Benjamin Harvey Hill was an American and Confederate politician from Georgia. His "flamboyant opposition" to Congressional Reconstruction is credited with helping inaugurate Georgia's Ku Klux Klan. His famous "brush arbor speech" in Atlanta on July 23, 1868, called for the use of violence against the governor, the legislature, and freed people. His career spanned state and national politics, and the Civil War. He served in the Georgia legislature in both houses. Although he initially opposed secession and was elected as a Unionist in 1860, he nonetheless voted to secede in that year, and represented Georgia as a Confederate senator during the conflict.