[2] He served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

After the war, he was Grand Dragon, or supreme leader of the Ku Klux Klan, that terrorized and often killed African-Americans.

According to Smithsonian, "The bridge was named for him, in part, to memorialize his history, of restraining and imprisoning African-Americans in their quest for freedom after the Civil War".

[5] Pettus was educated in local public schools, and later graduated from Clinton College located in Smith County, Tennessee.

[9] In 1861, Pettus, an enthusiastic champion of the Confederate cause and of slavery, was a Democratic Party delegate to the secession convention in Mississippi, where his brother John was serving as governor.

[8] During the 1863 Vicksburg Campaign, Pettus and his regiment were part of the force defending Confederate control of the Mississippi River.

[8] Pettus and his brigade participated in the Chattanooga Campaign, posted on the extreme southern slope of Missionary Ridge on November 24, and fought during the action the following day.

On May 2 he was paroled from Salisbury, North Carolina, and, four months after the Confederacy surrendered, Pettus was pardoned by U.S. President Andrew Johnson on October 20.

His campaign relied on his successes in organizing and popularizing the Alabama Klan and his prominent opposition to the constitutional amendments following the Civil War that elevated former slaves to the status of free citizens.

[9] Military historian Ezra J. Warner wrote that Pettus was "a fearless and dogged fighter and distinguished himself on many fields in the western theater of war" and after his promotion to a general officer "he followed with conspicuous bravery every forlorn hope which the Confederacy offered..."[6] Likewise historian Jon L. Wakelyn summed up his military career by saying " … he volunteered for service in the Confederate Army and distinguished himself in the western command.

[13] In 2020, Pettus’ great-great-granddaughter Caroline Randall Williams, Vanderbilt University writer-in-residence, proposed renaming the bridge after John Lewis because "We name things after honorable Americans to commemorate their legacies.

Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named.