Career
Born in 1838 in Portuguese Robinson, Upper Canada (in present-day Ontario), Stoddard enlisted in the United States. Navy on September 21, 1863, in Detroit. By March 5, 1864, he was serving as a seaman on the United States Ship Marmora. On that day, he was among a group of sailors who went ashore with a howitzer to help repulse a Confederate attack on Yazoo City, Mississippi.
Two of his shipmates, Seaman William J. Franks and Seaman Bartlett Laffey, were also awarded the medal for being in the gun crew.
He resigned from the Navy in May 1865. In 1944, the destroyer United States Ship Stoddard (Doctor of Divinity-566) was named in his honor.
