James Ward Wood, one of the founders of the Order, fought with Lee and the Confederacy in Company F of the 7th Virginia Cavalry.

For example, the History and Catalogue of the Kappa Alpha Fraternity (published by Chi Chapter at Vanderbilt University in 1891 with permission by the Fifteenth Kappa Alpha Convention) describes the organization's founding: "Conceived and matured at a college of which Gen. R. E. Lee was president, at the close of a fateful military conflict; in the Valley of Virginia made dear to Southern hearts by its vigor in battling for Southern rights...plundered and wrecked by the infamous Hunter's invading force; among the people with whom Stonewall Jackson lived till duty called him to arms... with this environment it was but natural that the Order should be of a semi-military type and have for its aim the cultivation and graces conceived to be distinctively Southern.

Let us speak it here tonight With unbroken regularity and with unfailing reverent tenderness the Kappa Alpha Fraternity yearly celebrated the Nineteenth Day of January.

In 1994, the advisory council of KA set the mission statement of the organization as such:Kappa Alpha Order seeks to create a lifetime experience which centers on reverence to God, duty, honor, character and gentlemanly conduct as inspired by Robert E. Lee, our spiritual founder.

[17][10][13][18] The Kappa Alpha Order National Administrative Office is located at Mulberry Hill, in Lexington, Virginia.

It is documented that Mulberry Hill is where Robert E. Lee spent his first night in Lexington, after arriving to take over as president of Washington College.

The Foundation provides grants for educational programs of the fraternity, such as the National Leadership Institute and Province Councils, and provides scholarships to graduate and undergraduate students.

The national office uses the money from Loyal Order memberships to help defray the cost of distributing the KA Journal, as well as other alumni resources.

Membership is open to Kappa Alphas who are currently serving, honorably discharged, or retired from the United States Armed Forces.

The Recognition Pin of the Military Order features the Maltese Cross, utilizing KA's colors crimson and old gold, and has 8 points in the cross, which symbolize the chivalric virtues of loyalty, piety, frankness, bravery, glory and honor, contempt of death, helpfulness towards the poor and sick, and respect for the church.

[1] The Kappa Alpha Order motto is "Dieu et les Dames" (God and the Ladies)[1] and is written on the ceiling of the Mississippi State Capitol.

"[10] The review continued that "the Klan served, by militant, warlike means, those same ideals which our Order was organized to cherish.”[10] Five years later, the KA Journal's editor proclaimed in a book he authored about KA's "Practical Founder," Samuel Zenas Ammen, that “The Ku Klux Klan was of contemporaneous origins and had an identity of purpose with Kappa Alpha.

The 1957 edition of the University of Alabama's yearbook, The Corolla, also features an image of KAs parading in Confederate uniforms under the words "The Klan in their afternoon formals.

"[40][41]Edmondson notes that there is a glaring historical legacy between KA's history of devotion to protecting white womanhood and a 2019 incident in which three members of its University of Mississippi chapter were suspended after they posted a photo on an Instagram account showing them posing with guns next to a bullet-riddled sign memorializing Emmett Till.

[13] Till, a 14-year-old African-American youth from Chicago, was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly offending Carolyn Bryant, a white woman.

[13][43] The local U.S. Attorney said that the incident regarding the Till memorial had been referred for further investigation to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

In November 2002, the Zeta Psi and Kappa Alpha Order chapters at the University of Virginia were suspended and subsequently cleared after the fraternities held a Halloween party where a few guests were photographed wearing blackface and dressed up as Uncle Sam and Venus and Serena Williams.

[45][46] In 2009, Kappa Alpha Order at the University of Alabama was criticized for wearing Confederate uniforms for an "Old South" parade that passed by an African-American sorority house celebrating its 35th anniversary.

The chapter said that the wall had been built for an annual "capture the flag" game and that the pro-Trump slogans were satirical and not in support of the candidate or his message.

[52] Michael Patton, now a philosophy professor at the University of Montevallo, "put on a cap with antlers"; he was called a homophobic slur and beaten up by the KA chapter.

[52] In 1997, a former pledge at Texas A&M University had to have a testicle surgically removed due to a fraternity member giving him a "super wedgie."

[54] In 2011, the chapter at Georgetown College was suspended by the national office of the fraternity after several members allegedly shouted racial slurs at a minority student on campus during an event in which members run through campus in their boxer shorts and shout in front of women's dormitories, though no one willing to testify to this incident proved willing to step forward in the subsequent days.

An African-American student who unsuccessfully demanded that the chapter take down a Confederate flag in the aftermath of the incident was suspended for brandishing a toy gun.

[57] In 2011, an investigation was started after a fraternity member fired a shotgun inside the University of Texas at Austin's chapter house.

The chapter refuted the hazing allegation as minor and unsupported by evidence and broke-ties with the national organization, forming a new fraternity Texas Omicron.

Kappa Alpha Order then sued Texas Omicron, unsuccessfully, for dues and other monies, as well as furnishings from the chapter house.

[69] In 2016, the chapter at the University of Missouri was placed on suspension and investigation after a freshman pledging was hospitalized due to a hazing incident that involved drinking excessive amounts of alcohol with the purported purpose of somehow validating his manhood.

'"[72] In 2020, the fraternity chapter at Furman University was suspended for four years following an incident involving an unapproved off-campus party during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[75] In 2022, the fraternity chapter at the University of Virginia was suspended for four years following a hazing incident that included alcohol and cigarette binge consumption.