Either side of this, he was involved in a notable duel in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked.
[1] Minis was commissioned as an assistant surgeon in the United States Army on April 12, 1826.
[2] On May 16, 1836, Minis married Sarah Augusta Livingston (1807–1892) of New York,[3] daughter of John Swift and Anna M. M.
[4] They had the following children together: Alice Henrietta (born 1837), Leila (1847), Charles Spalding, Annie, Mary Lela, Philip Henry, John Livingston and Augusta Medora.
[5] A fight between James Jones Stark and Minis that began in the spring of 1832 in Savannah's Luddington's bar ended on August 10 in the bar of the City Hotel by virtue of Minis shooting Stark dead with a pistol.