Removed from office during Congressional Reconstruction because he could not sign a required loyalty oath, Sheffey returned to his legal practice and became an adjunct professor at Washington & Lee University School of Law from 1875 to 1885.

Hugh Sheffey entered Yale College at the end of the freshman year, after his uncle's death.

In 1877 Washington and Lee University awarded Hugh Sheffey an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws; his alma mater did likewise in 1880.

[4] In 1860, Sheffey owned eight enslaved persons: 3 men, 3 women, a three-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl.

[5] In 1861 Augusta County voters again elected Sheffey to the House of Delegates, where he served alongside William M. Tate and James Walker.

After Virginia conceded defeat, fellow legislators elected Sheffey a judge of the local Circuit Court, and he continued on the bench until the winter of 1869, when he was removed during Congressional Reconstruction because he could not take the "iron-clad" oath required by the federal government.