Washington Co., AR - Biographies - Judge James Middleton Pittman

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Judge James Middleton Pittman, one of the distinguished jurists of the 
Fourth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas, was born near Prairie Grove May 
1, 1838, and is the son of James C. and Mary A. (Tuttle) Pittman. 
Judge Pittman left home at the age of thirteen, clerked in a dry goods 
store and attended Ozark Institute. At the age of sixteen he became 
teacher of mathematics in Ozark Institute, and the following year he 
began reading law in the office of Hon. W. D. Reagan, of Fayetteville, 
being admitted to the bar from this office in his twenty-first year, 
before Judge Felix I. Batson. He immediately began practicing at 
Carrollton, Carroll Co., and continued at this until the war, when he 
enlisted his services in the State troops, and rendered effective and 
active service at Oak Hill, or Wilson's Creek, as captain of Company 
K, Walker's regiment. After the discharge of the State troops he 
entered the Confederate service as private of Company E, Sixteenth 
Arkansas Infantry, Hill's regiment, and participated in the battles of 
Pea Ridge, Corinth and siege of Port Hudson, La. Upon the 
reorganization, in 1862, he was elected from the ranks as major of his 
regiment, and was afterward promoted to the rank of lieutenant-
colonel, taking command of the Sixteenth Arkansas. He was captured 
July 8, 1863, at Port Hudson, La., and was confined in the Federal 
prisons until released July 24, 1865, by special proclamation. After 
the war Judge Pittman spent a year in Carrollton, and in 1867 moved to 
Washington County, Ark. He represented that county and Benton County 
in the State Legislature of 1871. In 1874 he was elected circuit 
judge, holding the position until 1878. In 1882 he was re-elected, and 
has been elected to that incumbency ever since. He was married, in 
Carroll County, to Miss Margaret Peel, daughter of John W. Peel [see 
sketch elsewhere], and became the father of two sons and one daughter: 
Hubert N., a law student of promise; Jennie M. and Bob T. Judge 
Pittman is a member of the I. O. O. F., and Mrs. Pittman is a member 
of the Episcopal Church, and is an active worker in the same.