States Rights Gist

A scholarly South Carolina aristocrat, Gist reorganized the South Carolina State Militia to prepare his home state after Lincoln’s election, then took command of Barnard Bee’s brigade after Bee’s death at First Manassas and was promoted to brigadier general on March 20, 1862. He fought at Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and in the Atlanta Campaign. Before the Battle of Franklin, his brigade was still angered, especially the 24th South Carolina, by the lack of initiative that had cost it victory the night before at Spring Hill. At Franklin on November 30, 1864, the brigade, composed of the 46th, 65th, and 2nd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters and the 16th and 24th South Carolina, struck the 72nd Illinois and 111th Ohio and caused the 72nd to break and run. After his horse was shot from under him, Gist sprinted for the locust abatis, was hit in the chest, and died the next morning at the Harrison House. He was buried first in a private cemetery in Franklin and later at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States