After graduating, Humes became a teacher to pay off his financial debts. In 1854 he married another resident of Abingdon named Margaret Preston White, with whom he had two sons. He then relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he read law and became a lawyer. In 1858 he moved to Memphis and began a successful law practice. Humes was still a lawyer in Memphis when the American Civil War began.Wakelyn, p. 242.
