He moved with his family to Norwich, Connecticut, at an early age, when his father became choir director of the First Congregational Church.

Stevens ran away from home in 1847, at the age of 16, and enlisted in Cushing's Massachusetts regiment of volunteers, in which he served in Mexico during the Mexican–American War.

Stevens and three other mutineers were sentenced to death, but these sentences were commuted by the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to imprisonment for three years at hard labor at Fort Leavenworth, from which post he escaped and joined the Free State forces.

He met Brown on August 7, 1856, at the Nebraska state line, when Lane's Army of the North marched into "Bleeding Kansas."

"[2] In 1859, Stevens participated in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Brown, however, overruled Stevens and insisted that they remain inside the engine house waiting for the slaves to revolt and come to him "like bees to honey".

At first his captors could locate no pulse or heartbeat, yet Stevens remained awake and lucid.

He bears his sufferings with grim and silent fortitude, never complaining and absolutely without hope.

[5]At one point his trial had been "removed" to Federal Court in Staunton, Virginia, "in order that witnesses of other States be summoned.

"[6] However, his trial took place in Charles Town, in a special session of the Circuit Court which the Virginia Legislature authorized.

For his part in Brown's raid, Stevens was convicted of conspiring with slaves to revolt, and was executed on March 16, 1860, in Charles Town, West Virginia, one day after his 29th birthday.