About three years after his father's death at the family's plantation, "Waterview", on November 10, 1857, in Hampton, Virginia, John Critcher married Elizabeth Thomasia Kennon Whiting.

During the Civil War, Critcher enlisted as a major and later served as lieutenant colonel of the 15th Virginia Cavalry in the Confederate States Army.

Shortly after the war's end, the Virginia General Assembly appointed him judge of the eighth judicial circuit, but he was removed under Congressional Reconstruction, specifically the resolution dated February 18, 1869, which provided that anyone who had borne arms against the United States should be dismissed from office within thirty days, although Critcher later became a judge in Alexandria, Virginia after Reconstruction ended.

Northern Neck voters then elected Critcher again to the Virginia Senate (still a part-time position), where he served another four-year term (1873–1877), and was succeeded by William Mayo.

[1] Critcher still operated a Westmoreland County farm during the 1880 census, but moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where he was a judge by 1894.