James York was born around 1837 in England. He eventually immigrated to America and settled in New York. He enlisted in the Union army on February 3, 1865, as a substitute for Skillman Doughty, and he received an $815 bounty. He mustered in as a private in Company H of the 40^th New York Infantry later that day. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with brown hair and gray eyes. He was promoted to corporal on April 28, 1865, and he mustered out in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 1865. He settled in Chicago, Illinois, after the war and worked as a sailor. He never married. He began suffering from rheumatism by the late 1880s. He was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Indiana, in 1890, and he spent the following decade in and out of National Homes across the Midwest. He died sometime after 1899.

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