Tasker Howard Bliss was General of the United States Army, diplomat and educator. He served as the military attaché to the United States Legation from 1897 to 1898.
Background
Tasker Bliss was born on December 31, 1853, at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of George Ripley and Mary Ann (Raymond) Bliss, the latter a sister of John Howard Raymond. He was a descendant of Thomas Bliss, who emigrated from Devonshire, England, to Braintree, Massachussets, in 1635 and later settled in Hartford, Connecticut. The father was professor of Greek in the University at Lewisburg, a Baptist institution, the name of which was changed in 1886 to Bucknell University, and the boy was reared in a devout and scholarly atmosphere. He was the seventh in a family of thirteen children.
Education
One reason for Bliss's application for admission to West Point in his sophomore year at Lewisburg was to relieve the family budget of further cost for his education, since his father's salary was only five hundred dollars a year, twenty-five of which was given to the church. It was characteristic of him that he went to try the entrance examinations with a copy of Homer in the Greek in his carpet-bag. At West Point his failing was a little carelessness about the details of military discipline. Accepted by his fellow classmen as the scholar of the class of 1875, he would have been graduated higher than his rank of eighth if he had not spent so much time in studies outside the regular curriculum.
Career
Assigned to the artillery upon his graduation, Bliss was called back to West Point in 1876 to teach French and artillery tactics. Major-General John M. Schofield, a scholar of broad range beyond his profession, was superintendent of the Academy. He had shown himself to be no academic theorist by rising in his thirtieth year to the command of a corps under Gen. William T. Sherman in the Civil War. After the Custer massacre Bliss appealed to Schofield for active service in the West, but he bade him remain until he had finished his four years' tour as instructor. Since the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War Bliss had employed spare hours in the study of Russian in order to get first-hand information about the campaign. Schofield found a lecture Bliss delivered upon it so excellent that he asked him to expand it for publication. Following a period of routine service after the end of his tour as instructor at West Point, Bliss was chosen as the army officer to teach military science at the new Naval War College at Newport (1885 - 88), where he made so distinctive an impression that he was sent on a mission to get information about military schools in England, France, and Germany.
When General Schofield succeeded Gen. Philip H. Sheridan as commanding general of the army, he chose Bliss as his aide and as inspector of artillery and small-arms target practice. In the little army of 25, 000 men advancement was so slow that Bliss remained a lieutenant of artillery until he was thirty-nine years old. In 1892 he was transferred to a captaincy in the Commissary Corps, which provided him with more pay for the support of his family and the education of his two children. He saw little future in the army, but it was the career for which his country had trained him, and he was at home in it, while he gratified his scholarly inclinations. He was with Schofield for seven years (1888 - 1895), until the General's retirement. Now in his forty-second year, he was still only a captain in rank.
His desire for a change from Washington official life was balked when Secretary of War Daniel Lamont, who did not want to part with his services in the War Department, made him his special assistant. At the close of Lamont's term, with the incoming of the McKinley administration in 1897, the relations of the United States with Spain were becoming critical. Bliss now received an appointment to his taste, that of military attaché to Spain, where he remained until the declaration of war. Upon his return he was made a major and took part in the Puerto Rican campaign as chief of staff to Major-General James H. Wilson. His administrative record and his knowledge of the Spanish language and Spanish ways recommended him for the difficult task of chief of the Cuban customs service during the occupation of Cuba. The Cuban custom houses had become sinks of corruption under the Spanish régime and Bliss had a harrowing task in cleaning the major Augean stable of Habana and the minor ones at other ports.
In 1902, when the Cuban Government took over all administration, Secretary of War Elihu Root brought Bliss to Washington as an adviser in reorganization of the army under a general staff system. In November of that same year, at the request of Secretary of State John Hay, he proceeded to Cuba to negotiate the important Cuban reciprocity treaty, which he wrote so definitively in the final draft that it was subject to practically no changes. In the meantime, President William McKinley had recommended that he be made a brigadier-general of the regular army and the Senate had confirmed the promotion without an opposing voice.
Bliss now had the rank suitable for him as the founding president of the new Army War College. After command of the Department of Luzon in the Philippines, 1905-1906, he had for three years that of the Department of Mindanao, where he successfully kept the peace as arbiter of the quarrels among the fractious rival Moro (Mohammedan) chiefs and exerted his administrative authority and personal influence in a progressive educational program. In 1908-1909 he was in command of the Philippine Division. Upon his return to the United States in 1909 he was ad interim president of the War College, briefly assistant chief of staff, held departmental and divisional troop commands, and became assistant chief of staff under Major-General Hugh L. Scott then chief in 1915, when he was promoted major-general. A month after the entry of the United States into the First World War, when General Scott was sent on a mission to Russia, Bliss had the supreme military responsibility as acting chief of staff. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker relied unreservedly upon Bliss's experience, foresight, and balanced judgment in the midst of the pressure and confusion of national energies in the hasty forming and equipping of a huge army.
Upon General Scott's retirement for age, Bliss succeeded him as chief of staff on September 22, 1917, the office carrying with it the rank of general. Bliss himself had only three months to serve before retirement for age, but he was continued on active duty by order of the president. He was relieved as chief of staff on May 19, 1918, and the following day received the brevet rank of general. As governor of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, 1920-1927, he found relaxation in a more profound study of Latin in company with Father Christopher of the Catholic University. But his great interest in his declining years was in advocacy of the entry of the United States into the World Court, and in the cause of peace through general reduction of armaments. He was a member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs, to which he contributed several articles. Through a cruel illness his mind remained clear until his death in his eighty-seventh year.
Achievements
Connections
On May 24, 1882 Tasker Bliss was married to Eleanora E. Anderson. She was highly educated, had lived abroad, and knew both French and German. They had two children, Eleanor and Edward Goring.