Rank: First Lieutenant
Unit: 2d Cavalry
Commissioned: 1901
Date of birth:6 February 1879
Hometown: California
College: Leigh University in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Class of 1901
Campaign: Philippines
Died: 16 Apr 1911
Age at death: 32
Cause of death: Attacked by a local citizen.
Location of fatality: Jolo Jolo, Philippines
Place of interment: San Francisco National Cemetery in San Francisco, California
Click to open a new window to view Soldier’s grave site on the Find A Grave website.
Note: Appointed as a Second Lieutenant of Cavalry with the 1st United States Cavalry Regiment on February 2nd, 1901, accepting the appointment on September 18th, 1901.
He was appointed as a Second Lieutenant of Cavalry with the 1st United States Cavalry Regiment on February 2nd, 1901, accepting the appointment on September 18th, 1901. He was promoted to First Lieutenant of Cavalry with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment on August 2nd, 1910, and joined the regiment in the Philippine Islands. He was killed as a result of an attack by a local citizen on April 16th, 1911, in the Philippine Islands. An account of his death follows:
“Sunday, April 16, 1911 1t Lt. Walter H. Rodney, a recently arrived young officer, was out for a stroll with his five year old daughter on a wide boulevard outside the walls of the Jolo garrison. As the pair walked by a cockpit, thronged with excited, screaming spectators watching a cockfight, a lone, young male Tausug approached from the opposite direction. As they passed one another, the Tausug suddenly pulled a barong from his shirt, whirled about, and repeatedly slashed the hapless officer about the head and shoulders. Rodney staggered to the side of the road, mortally wounded. His daughter, though traumatized, was left unharmed as the man quickly discarded his weapon and attempted to hide in the nearby crowd. Cries of “juramentado” went up from the cockpit and hundreds ran for the safety of the guarded village gate. The commanding officer of the garrison, by chance only a few yards away in a passing carriage, yelled for the gate sentries who, assisted by the crowd, confronted the assailant and shot him to death.”