Sawyer studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Edenton.
Sawyer was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-sixth Congress, moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and resumed the practice of law.
Sawyer moved to Washington, D.C. During the Civil War, he was appointed on September 17, 1861, as commissary with the rank of major in the Confederate service.
As a young man, before he married, Sawyer had a relationship with an enslaved Black woman, Harriet Jacobs, who was seeking protection from her master, Dr. James Norcom of Edenton.
In her autobiography, Jacobs relates that Sawyer promised to legally manumit their children, but failed to do so.