He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity[2] before entering the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York.

[citation needed] Upon graduation, Bliss was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st Artillery and performed routine garrison duties in Georgia and New York.

The purpose of the trip was to determine if United States military schools were teaching similar and relevant material.

[citation needed] On 20 December 1892, while aide-de-camp, he was promoted to captain, staff, Commissary of Subsistence and on 26 September 1895 he was assigned to special duty at the office of the Secretary of War.

Bliss was then assigned to the 6th Army Corps as Chief Commissary, 23 May 1898, and then Camp George H. Thomas, in Chickamauga, Georgia, until ordered to Santiago, Cuba, and then Puerto Rico on 20 July 1898.

Colonel Bliss arrived in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in early August and was appointed as the chief of staff, 1st Division, I Army Corps, under Major General James H. Wilson.

Concurrent assignments included being a board member to select camp sites in Cuba and chief commissary of the I Army Corps.

While serving as Chief, Collector of Customs for the Island of Cuba and the Port of Havana he was also the President of the commission to Revise the Cuban Tariff Treaty in 1901 and was appointed to the Army War College Board as Special Envoy to Cuba to negotiate the treaty ratification in November and December 1902.

Bliss was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Regular Army by an Act of Congress under direction of the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

On 15 August 1903, Bliss was appointed a member of the General Staff, Chief, 3rd Division and President of the Army War College.

On 17 November 1917, he was assigned as the American Permanent Military Representative, Supreme War Council, concurrent with the U.S. Army Chief of Staff position.

As Chief of the American section of the Supreme War Council, General Bliss has taken an important part in the shaping of the policies that have brought victory to our cause.

She joined the United States Geological Survey where she met and married fellow geologist, Adolph Knopf.

A portrait of General Bliss hangs in Luce Hall at the United States Naval War College.