During the Black Hawk War of 1832, Ford did not resign that office but enlisted in Colonel Samuel Whiteside's Spy Battalion. (His brother may have begun spying on Chief Black Hawk before the war formally began, as disaffected young warriors had begun raiding white settlements.) Ford served as the local prosecutor for the northwestern section of the state until 1835, and also achieved recognition as one of three defense counsel for Illinois Supreme Court Justice Theophilus W. Smith, who had married Ford and his wife in 1828 and survived an impeachment trial in 1833.