Named States Rights Gist by his father, the Harvard Law School graduate went on to become a Confederate general despite his lack of formal military training. This biography fills in the outline of Gist that other historians have left incomplete. His brilliant performance in high command led him to become a militia general at the age of twenty-four. He participated in the first shots at Fort Sumter and lead the charge at Franklin, Tennessee, dying gallantly in the process. In the interim, he was a combat leader at First Manassas, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta campaign.