11 Facts About Mordecai Gist

Mordecai Gist was a member of a prominent Maryland family who became a brigadier general in command of the Maryland Line in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Richard Mordecai Gist's father, Christopher Mordecai Gist, was an English immigrant who came to the Province of Maryland before 1682 and settled in "South Canton" on the south bank of the Patapsco River.

In 1776, Mordecai Gist was appointed major of Smallwood's Maryland Regiment, and was with them in the Battle of Long Island, where they fought a delaying action at the Old Stone House, allowing the American army to escape encirclement.

Mordecai Gist fought stubbornly at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780.

Mordecai Gist escaped, and, a year later, he was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Mordecai Gist joined the southern army under Nathanael Greene, and he was given the command of the light corps again when the army was remodeled in 1782.

Mordecai Gist later transferred his membership to the South Carolina Society.

Mordecai Gist served as the grand master of Freemasons in South Carolina.

Mordecai Gist is buried in St Michael's Churchyard next to his son, States Gist, and daughter Susannah Gist.

Mordecai Gist was distantly related to States Rights Gist, a brigadier general in the Confederate army during the American Civil War who died of wounds received while leading his brigade in a charge against US fortifications at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864.

Mordecai Gist's papers are held at the Maryland Historical Society.