He was the eldest son of the French-American Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte (1805–1870) and his wife, the former Susan May Williams (1812–1881).

His younger brother was Charles Joseph Bonaparte, who served as the United States Attorney General and Secretary of the Navy under Theodore Roosevelt.

[4] Bonaparte entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1847 and graduated 11th in the Class of 1852.

[5] For his services, he was the recipient of the decoration of the Medjidie Order from Abdulmejid I, the Sultan of Turkey, the Crimea Medal from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur.

[1] Following the Siege of Paris, Bonaparte left the French Army and returned home to the United States.