David Stuart was a politician and lawyer who served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born in Brooklyn, Stuart moved with his father to Michigan, where the younger Stuart was a lawyer. After serving for a term in the United States House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he practiced law. His reputation was destroyed by a scandal relating to a divorce case. In 1861, Stuart raised two regiments for service in the American Civil War. On October 31 of that year, Stuart became the colonel of the 55th Illinois Infantry Regiment. He led a brigade at the Battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded in the shoulder on April 6, 1862. After commanding a regiment during the Siege of Corinth later that year, Stuart was appointed brigadier general on November 29, 1862. He led first a brigade, and then a division at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in December, and also led a division at the Battle of Arkansas Post in January 1863. On March 11, 1863, Stuart's promotion to brigadier general was rejected by the United States Senate for unknown reasons. He resigned from the army in April and returned to the practice of law, dying in 1868.

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the American Civil War fought on April 6–7, 1862. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater. The battlefield is located between a small, undistinguished church named Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Two Union armies combined to defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi. Major General Ulysses S. Grant was the Union commander, while General Albert Sidney Johnston was the Confederate commander until his battlefield death, when he was replaced by his second-in-command, General P. G. T. Beauregard.