He entered the Confederate army early in 1862, and joined the 4th Kentucky Regiment, commanded by Colonel Trabue, his former law partner. He lost his right leg at the Battle of Murfreesboro (or Stone River), January 2, 1863, while acting as staff officer under General Breckenridge. In 1863 he was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, and in 1865 he resumed the practice of his profession in Madison Parish, in which he continued to be a prominent lawyer and citizen until his last illness. He died on his cotton plantation, near Tallulah, Madison Parish, Louisiana, October 18, 1885, after an illness of three months, in the 51st year of his age. His only child, a son, survived him.