He was one of eleven children born to New York City merchant Ebenezer Stevens.

After graduating from Medical School, Stevens traveled to France with the object of pursuing surgical studies, but, on being captured by an English cruiser and taken into Plymouth, he went to London and received instruction from John Abernethy and Astley Cooper for a year, and then studied for a year longer under Alexis Boyer and Baron Larrey in Paris.

When appointed surgeon to the New York Hospital in 1818, he introduced the European system of surgical demonstrations and instruction at the bedside.

In 1825 he became professor of the principles and practice of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

He became professor of clinical surgery in 1837, but in the following year resigned his active duties in this institution and in the college, and thenceforth acted mainly as a consulting surgeon, both in public and private practice.