James Caten was born around 1847 in Canada to Sally Caten. The family lived in Phillipsburg, Canada, and his father died sometime before 1851. The family immigrated to America in the early 1850s and settled in Kingsbury, New York.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 12, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company D of the 169th New York Infantry on October 6. He apparently lied about his age, claiming that he was 18 years old. The regiment took part in the siege of Suffolk, the Bermuda Hundred campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and the Carolinas campaign.
He remained devoted to the Union. In September 1863, he declared Charleston, South Carolina, the “doomed garden of secession,” writing that “it will be a pleasure to every soldier to see it in ruins for it was the polluted spot where the first act was committed that opened this unhapy rebellion.” The city, he continued, had “always been the hot house and nest of traitors & I for one want to see it laid in ashes.” He mustered out on June 7, 1865. He died sometime after the war.