[4] Along with his successful career as an attorney, Sneed was involved in several business ventures, most notably the Lamar House Hotel, which he purchased in 1856.
[8] He formed a law partnership with powerful attorney Oliver Perry Temple (1820–1907),[1] and gained renown for his ability to argue chancery court cases.
This brought him into conflict with his long-time friend, William "Parson" Brownlow, radical publisher of the pro-Union Knoxville Whig.
On February 2, 1861, Sneed published a circular in the Whig arguing that secession was already a fact, and that East Tennesseans should avoid bloody conflict against fellow Southerners.
Realizing that mountainous East Tennessee would not be sympathetic to complaints of Southern planters, Sneed went to great lengths to show how the abolition of slavery would harm poor Southern whites, arguing that emancipation would lead to higher taxes and greater competition for manual labor jobs.
[4] Burnside's successor as commander of Knoxville's Union forces, Joseph Foster, used Sneed's house at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Market Street as his headquarters.
[5] In the Standard History of Knoxville, edited by Brownlow protégé William Rule, Sneed was described as "one of the most painstaking, laborious and able lawyers of his time.