His younger brother Edward Toy would serve the entire war in the 2nd Maryland Infantry, Eastern Shore, enlisting as a private and rising to sergeant.
[4] On January 3, 1864, James Toy volunteered to lead colored troops then being organized at Fort Monroe in Virginia, and received a commission as 1st lieutenant of the 2nd United States Colored Cavalry Regiment, first helping to lead company H and later rising to the rank of captain and leading Company D.[5] The unit participated in the Siege of Petersburg and related actions until February 1865, and then was sent to Norfolk and assigned duties on Virginia's Eastern Shore before being dispatched to Texas in June 1865,[6] although Toy would be mustered out in Maryland in February 1866.
[8] After that Constitution was adopted, Northampton voters elected Toy to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1869 and re-elected him to the part-time position the following year.
[9] In 1871, in a close election, former slave and Union veteran Peter J. Carter won the seat, and would remain a major force in the Republican party on the Eastern shore for more than the next decade.
James C. Toy resigned his government job for health reasons in January 1914, and died in Washington, D.C. the following month, survived by his second wife, a daughter and a son.