[1] He then travelled to Shanghai, China in December 1854 before becoming a civil engineer at Allen's Grove, Wisconsin on May 14, 1857.

[1] He then spent eight months at Texas as an engineer on the Buffalo, Bayou, Brazos & Colorado River Railroad.

[3][4] Ames was wounded during the Battle of Chaffin's Farm while commanding the Third Brigade of the Second Division of the XVIII Corps.

[2] Ames said of his reason for fighting the war:[5] Slavery has brought death into our own households already in its wicked rebellion…There is but one way [to win the war] and that is emanicpation…I want to sing ‘John Brown’ in the streets of Charleston, and ram red-hot abolitionism down their unwilling throats at the point of the bayonet.Ames married Margaret Corlis Plumly on May 17, 1865, before becoming employed at the Burlington & Missouri Railroad in Iowa as Ames moved to Burlington, Iowa, before moving to San Francisco to become a Surveyor-general.

[1] Ames died on April 6, 1878, at San Rafael, California and was buried at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery.