[2] At age 18, he began working at various occupations, taught common school, and hired private instructors for his own advancement.
[2] At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he volunteered for service in the Union Army, along with his younger brother, David G. James, and several of their former school classmates.
[4] They arrived at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, on March 20, 1862, and were assigned to the left wing of Grant's army.
James was not personally wounded at Shiloh, but was seriously ill after the fighting and was sent to a hospital north of Cairo, Illinois.
[2] After selling his stake in the hardware business and the railroad, James opened a lumber yard and operated a mill for the next fourteen years.
He was first elected to the Assembly for Richland County's first Assembly district (the Towns of (Towns of Buena Vista, Henrietta, Ithaca, Orion, Richland, Rockbridge, Westford and Willow) in 1872 as a Republican; he did not seek re-election, and was succeeded by fellow Republican Joseph McGrew.
He was elected state senator for the 28th District (at that time consisting of Iowa and Richland Counties) in 1884 (Republican incumbent William C. Meffert was not a candidate), receiving 4,712 votes, against 4,291 for Democrat George Crawford and 573 for Prohibitionist John Lee.
He described himself as a longtime friend and supporter of Stephenson, whom he had met when they were both delegates to the 1880 Republican National Convention, and with whom he often went fishing.
He testified that the only money he had been paid from the campaign was reimbursement for expenditures he'd made in support of Stephenson's election.
Norman James married Georgia Lane of Bear Valley, Wisconsin, on September 11, 1865.