His widow, Sarah Hurt, filed a widow's pension application from Habersham County in 1895. In it she describes how James' elbow was shattered by a gun shot wound on June 5th 1864 "in a picket fight near Fredericksburg, Va." (more likely on this date they would have been down around Cold Harbor) She goes on to state that his wound "discharged a very offensive matter which continued to run as long as he lived." She continues, "It began to inflame around the core in 1883 and spread all up his arm and in the left side (of) his face and his feet began to swell and gradually grew worse his system succumbing to the poison in the wound and after lying in his bed for three years he died at home August 20, 1886."