Mordecai Gist

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Modecai Gist (1743 – 1792) was a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Gist was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His ancestors were early English emigrants to the Province of Maryland. He was educated for commercial pursuits.

At the beginning of the American Revolution, the young men of Baltimore associated under the title of the "Baltimore Independent Company" and elected Gist as their captain. It was the first company raised in Maryland for the defense of popular liberty.

In 1776, Gist was appointed major of a battalion of regulars, and was with them in the battle near Brooklyn. In January 1779, the Continental Congress appointed him as a brigadier general in the Continental Army, and he took the command of the 2nd Maryland Brigade. He fought stubbornly at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780. At one time after a bayonet charge, his force secured fifty prisoners, but the British under Lord Cornwallis rallied, and the Marylanders gave way. Gist escaped, and, a year later, was present at the surrender of Cornwallis.

He joined the southern army under Nathaniel Greene, and he was given the command of the light corps again when the army was remodelled in 1782. On August 26, 1782, he rallied the broken forces of the Americans under John Laurens at the battle of the Combahee and gained a decisive victory over the British.

After the war, Gist resided on his plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. He had two children, both sons, one of whom he named "Independent" and the other "States." He died in Charleston, where he is buried in St. Michael's Churchyard.

Among his descendants was States Rights Gist, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.