Educated in private schools, the younger James Freeman married Amanda Malvania Neal on May 9, 1843, in Pike County, Georgia.

[7] J.R. Freeman volunteered to fight for the Confederacy, and received a commission as a lieutenant in the Floyd legion, a Georgia militia company in October 1861, and was promoted to at least Lt.Col.

[8] In May 1862 this Freeman either volunteered or was conscripted into Company B of the 42nd Georgia Infantry, known as the Echols Guards, a Confederate unit formed in Meriwether County.

As a congressman, Freeman appointed Henry Ossian Flipper to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, who became the first black person to graduate from that institution.

After Freeman lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Milton A. Candler, he moved to nearby Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and youngest son and daughter.