James Dillon Armstrong

In early 1862, Stonewall Jackson appointed Armstrong as his chief of staff in the Confederate States Army; Armstrong accepted this position but Virginia Governor John Letcher and others persuaded him to reconsider and decline Jackson's appointment because his services were required in the Virginia Senate.

In 1875, he was appointed to serve as Judge of the 4th West Virginia Judicial Circuit[a] and he remained on the bench until his resignation in 1892.

In 1853, he and his father-in-law William Henry Foote organized Mount Hope Church in present-day Keyser, West Virginia.

[8] Armstrong's mother was the daughter of Edward McCarty, a Continental Army Colonel who served under George Washington and was present at the Siege of Yorktown during the American Revolutionary War.

[21] However, on June 20, 1863, Armstrong's senate district, consisting of Hampshire, Hardy, and Morgan counties,[18] officially became part of the new state of West Virginia.

[22][23] Following the onset of the American Civil War in April 1861,[24] Armstrong began serving on Hampshire County's committee of safety alongside Isaac Parsons and Angus William McDonald.

[25] Stonewall Jackson appointed Armstrong as his chief of staff in the Confederate States Army in early 1862.

[8] Following the end of the American Civil War, Armstrong applied for a special pardon and received it from President Andrew Johnson.

[26] In May 1866, during the post-war Reconstruction era, Armstrong, Robert White, J. W. F. Allen, A. W. Kercheval, and Alexander W. Monroe refused to take the test oath before Hampshire County Court,[27][28][29] and Armstrong was forbidden to practice law,[28] and denied the right to vote by the Romney township registrar and Hampshire County board of registration.

[29][30][31][32] On September 14, 1866, the circuit court at Romney awarded a peremptory writ of mandate requiring the board to register Armstrong without him taking the oath.

[33][34][35] In 1872, Armstrong, Robert White, and J. W. F. Allen were candidates for the position of Judge of the 4th West Virginia Judicial Circuit.

[46] As a ruling elder, Armstrong was a member of the December 1861 General Assembly that organized the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

[3][9] His funeral was held at Romney Presbyterian Church on September 7, 1893, and he was interred at the town's Indian Mound Cemetery.

[3][57] Armstrong's obituary in the Hampshire Review describes him as "an able lawyer ... an enterprising, liberal citizen, and above all, a high minded Christian gentleman".