Dodge was promoted to corporal sometime before accepting a commission as a second lieutenant in the 2nd USCT Cavalry Regiment on December 23, 1863, having been discharged from the enlisted ranks the day before.

[5] Assigned to Fort Stockton which was located somewhere between San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, Dodge and his unit remained there for the better part of five years, until fall 1873.

It was on this return trip that a message written by Captain Payne commanding the besieged troops near White River was delivered by a courier named Mansfield from the Indian Agency, indicating they were surrounded and had forty wounded men.

[2]: 107 His Spanish-American War service included postings in Atlanta, Georgia as chief paymaster of the Department of the Gulf, Santiago, Cuba and Puerto Rico by July 1898.

[2]: 107  During a later trip to Cuba, Dodge contracted yellow fever in August and was sick for a few days but recovered fully after returning to New York for three months; during this period, he was assigned as chief paymaster for the Department of Colorado.

Residing in the Lieutenant Governor’s Palace in Havana, he again contracted yellow fever in late 1900 and was the only one of the officers in the department's paymaster corps to survive it.

Dodge was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the White River War on April 2, 1898.Rank and organization: Captain, Company D, 9th U.S. Cavalry.

[8]After twenty-one years at Major rank, Dodge was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and became a Deputy Paymaster General in the United States Army, assigned to the Department of the East until January 1904.

[2]: 112 Dodge died in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1908; his health had declined over the years since returning from his multiple yellow fever infections[2]: 113  and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.