Kennon's first posting upon graduation from West Point in 1881 was with the Cavalry, moving the Uinta
Uncompahgre Ute Indians (
fresh from a massacre a year earlier) to
a newly established reservation. As a junior lieutenant in 1884, he wrote a
Manual of Duties of Guards and Sentinels which was the first such manual adopted by the Army. His 1886 article on "Battle Tactics of Infantry" was widely discussed here and abroad and led to the replacement of ''Upton's Military Tactics'' as Army doctrine. Numerous other publications followed, including a critique of the 1886 wholesale incarceration of the
Chiricahua Apache tribe for the acts of a few warriors. "For the sins of these few," he wrote, "a sentence of banishment was visited upon the whole tribe. They were far from deserving it." After serving as aide to General
George Crook upon his death in 1890, Kennon began service with the
US Army Corps of Engineers, being sent to
Central America in 1891 as engineer to survey a possible route for an
inter-oceanic canal. While there, he surveyed Mexico's border with Guatemala, eventually carrying the survey around Guatemala until it reached the Nicaraguan border. In the
Spanish–American War, as commander of Company "E" the
6th Infantry Regiment, he was the 2nd American Officer (after
Lt. J.G. Ord) to reach the blockhouse on top of
San Juan Hill, for which he was recommended for a
brevet promotion and the
Medal of Honor. After the war he was for a time in charge of civil affairs in
Cuba as well as being Cuba's acting Secretary of Commerce and Agriculture. On October 9, 1899, Kennon arrived the Philippines, where he participated in military actions in the
Philippine–American War. He served as Military Governor of the province of
Ilocos Norte from November 1900 to March 1901. He read and memorized passages from the
Koran in preparation for an assignment to a
Moro area. While in
Mindanao from 1901 to 1903, he built the
Iligan to
Lake Lanao road and then, at the request of
Governor Taft, he completed in 1905 the strategically important
Benguet Road from Manila to Baguio in 18 months. In the next few years he traveled to Japan to examine railroads, to
Brazil in 1906 as delegate to the
Pan-American Congress and Military Attache. In 1915 he commanded the 161st Depot Brigade at the U.S. Mexican border in support of the
U.S.–Mexican Border War. In 1918, after training 17,000 troops at Camp Greene in North Carolina, and then after assuming command of the 171st brigade and then the 86th division at Camp Grant near
Rockford, Illinois, he was denied the right to take his division overseas to France because of an unfavorable medical diagnosis. He died soon after the division's departure from New York at the Hotel Cumberland (Broadway and 54th) in New York City on September 9, 1918, probably due to the
influenza outbreak.
Military awards •
Indian Campaign Medal •
Spanish Campaign Medal •
Philippine Campaign Medal •
Mexican Service Medal •
Mexican Border Service Medal ==Family life, honors and legacy==