[1] The son of Pietro Milon and Cecilia Voces, was born into a military family of Spanish origin in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: his uncle, Francesco, was the last Bourbon governor of Gaeta and signed its surrender in February 1861 to the Sardinian general Enrico Cialdini.

The paralyzing indecision with which the council ended led to the opening of negotiations which brought about the complete retreat of Bourbon troops from Calabria.

With this rank and position, in January 1861, Milon was one of the first ex-Bourbon officers to join the Italian army, with which he participated in the final stages of the campaign.

[6][7] Existing measures to combat banditry were proving insufficient: the network of complicity provided by the "manutengoli", who helped the bandits through kinship, interest or fear, could not be broken.

[10] In December, Milon banned taking food from the cities to the countryside to starve out the bandits, and he had livestock herded into designated pastures and guarded by armed shepherds.

At the end of the year, the state of emergency was over, with 86 bandits killed, denounced or arrested, 200 "maintainers" referred to the judicial authorities and no less than 86 deaths by "accident" or during “escape attempts”.

[5] In 1880 the constituency of Bari elected him as deputy of the XIV Legislature of the Kingdom of Italy[4] and, on July 27 of the same year, he was appointed Minister of War in the Cairoli III cabinet.

[2] Commenting in his appointment, it:Il Fanfullo said “Bernardino Milon has one great quality - that of not being ambitious.”[11] In October 1880, he brought together the General Staff Committee and requested a new plan for the Kingdom's fortifications;[12] then he presented to the House three bills concerning modifications in recruitment, the creation of a subsidiary officer position and the increase in the pensions of officers who participated in the campaigns of 1848 and 1849.