States Rights Gist was a lawyer, a militia general in South Carolina, and a Confederate Army brigadier general who served during the American Civil War. A relative of several prominent South Carolinians, Gist rose to fame during the war but was killed at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. His name was based on the Southern states' rights doctrine of nullification politics of his father, Nathaniel Gist. Nathaniel Gist was a disciple of John C. Calhoun and chose his son's name to reflect his own political sentiments.

The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 18–20, 1863, between the United States Army and Confederate forces in the American Civil War, marked the end of a U.S. Army offensive, the Chickamauga Campaign, in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It was the first major battle of the war fought in Georgia, the most significant US defeat in the Western Theater, and involved the second-highest number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg.