Nevertheless, Gist passed the bar examination and returned to Union to build Rose Hill Plantation on the land that his father had left him.

Receiving assurances from the governors of Florida and Mississippi that they would follow South Carolina's lead, Gist called for a secession convention to be held in Columbia on December 17, 1860.

The creation of the South Carolina Executive Council in 1861 provided Gist with an opportunity to participate in the state's wartime activities of the Civil War.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Gist took an oath of allegiance in Greenville, South Carolina, and received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson.

He returned to Rose Hill Plantation, which had survived the Civil War and Sherman's March to the Sea because the Broad River was in flood stages and the Union troops could not get through.