A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt administration was defused in May with an offer of jobs with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted.

The practice derived from English legislation passed in the 1592–93 session of Parliament to provide medical care and maintenance for disabled veterans and bonuses for serving soldiers.

Considerable pressure was applied to expand benefits to match the British system for serving soldiers and sailors but had little support from the colonial government until mass desertions at Valley Forge that threatened the existence of the Continental Army led George Washington to become a strong advocate.

Two years later, hundreds of Pennsylvania war veterans marched on Philadelphia, then the nation's capital, surrounded the State House, where the U.S. Congress was in session, and demanded back pay.

[citation needed] Congress progressively passed legislation from 1788 covering pensions and bonuses, eventually extending eligibility to widows in 1836.

In 1855, Congress increased the land-grant minimum to 160 acres (65 ha), and reduced the eligibility requirements to fourteen days of military service or one battle; moreover, the bonus also applied to veterans of any Indian war.

[10] Although there was congressional support for the immediate redemption of the military service certificates, Hoover and Republican congressmen opposed such action and reasoned that the government would have to increase taxes to cover the costs of the payout and so any potential economic recovery would be slowed.

[11] The Veterans of Foreign Wars continued to press the federal government to allow the early redemption of military service certificates.

Other veterans lived much closer, in partially demolished buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Third Street SW.[14][15] Although occupation of Anacostia Flats was against federal law, D.C. police Superintendent Pelham D. Glassford obtained permission off the record from his friend Major General Ulysses S. Grant III, Director of Public Buildings and Public Parks in the Capital, who promised to make no objection.

[16] The chosen site was located in the historically African American side of Anacostia; nearby were tennis courts and a baseball diamond, the latter of which was used by children of the camp.

[17] The War Department had refused a request by Senator James Hamilton Lewis to set up billets, so veterans, women and children lived in the shelters they built from materials dragged out of a junk pile nearby, which included old lumber, packing boxes, and scrap tin covered with roofs of thatched straw.

Camp Marks was tightly controlled by the veterans, who laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, set up an internal police force and held daily parades.

A vibrant community arose revolving around several key sections, including the religious tent, where marchers could be heard expressing forbearance, trust in God and gratitude for what they had compared to other victims of the Depression.

Also popular was the Salvation Army lending library, where marchers wrote letters home in its makeshift post office (postage stamps were more prized than cigarettes, it was said).

[19] To live in the camps, veterans were required to register and to prove they had been honorably discharged or provided a bonus certificate, at which point a membership card would be issued.

Hoover passed the request to Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley, who told MacArthur to take action to disperse the protesters.

[28] An Army intelligence report claimed that the BEF intended to occupy the Capitol permanently and instigate fighting, as a signal for communist uprisings in all major cities.

[30]In 1932, Hoover stated that the bulk of Bonus Army members behaved reasonably and a minority of what he described as communists and career criminals were responsible for most of the unrest associated with the events: "I wish to state emphatically that the extraordinary proportion of criminal, Communist, and nonveteran elements amongst the marchers as shown by this report, should not be taken to reflect upon the many thousands of honest, law-abiding men who came to Washington with full right of presentation of their views to the Congress.

[37] Believing it wrong for the Army's highest-ranking officer to lead an action against fellow American war veterans, he strongly advised MacArthur against taking any public role: "I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there," he said later.

However, MacArthur's aide Dwight Eisenhower, Assistant Secretary of War for Air F. Trubee Davison, and Brigadier General Perry Miles, who commanded the ground forces, all disputed Moseley's claim.

Joe Angelo, a decorated hero from the war who had saved Patton's life during the Meuse-Argonne offensive on September 26, 1918, approached him the day after to sway him.

This episode was said to represent the proverbial essence of the Bonus Army, each man the face of each side: Angelo the dejected loyal soldier; Patton the unmoved government official unconcerned with past loyalties.

[43] Though the Bonus Army incident did not derail the careers of the military officers involved, it proved politically disastrous for Hoover, and it was a contributing factor to his losing the 1932 election in a landslide to Franklin D.

The Roosevelt administration set up a special camp for the marchers at Fort Hunt, Virginia, providing forty field kitchens serving three meals a day, bus transportation to and from the capital, and entertainment in the form of military bands.

[45] On May 11, 1933,[50] Roosevelt issued an executive order allowing the enrollment of 25,000 veterans in the CCC, exempting them from the normal requirement that applicants be unmarried and under the age of 25.