April 16, 2026: General Studying: The Anti-Bonus Army Generals

[On April 11, 1951, President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his position as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. MacArthur is one of many U.S. Generals who have a great deal to tell us about our wars, our military histories, and many other political and social contexts, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of other famous generals, leading up to a complex layer of our current military and American moment.]

On what we might make of the role of three famous Generals (present and future) in the horrific July 1932 attack on the Bonus Army’s encampment.

1. MacArthur: As I discuss in that hyperlinked We’re History article on the Bonus Army, the General in charge of the troops ordered by President Herbert Hoover to remove the marchers was none other than this week’s inspiration, Douglas MacArthur. Given that the troops ended up burning the Bonus Army camp to the ground (among other acts of unnecessary violence), the most obvious parallel is to a major factor in Truman’s 1951 removal of MacArthur: his clear tendency to argue for extreme measures, such as the use of nuclear weapons in Korea. But given that there was and remains debate about whether MacArthur disobeyed Hoover’s orders in burning down the camp, I’d say 1932 also foreshadows his continued tendency toward insubordination as well.
2. Patton: One of MacArthur’s chief lieutenants in 1932 was a Major named George S. Patton; despite their different ranks, Patton was only five years younger than MacArthur and so was in many ways a peer of his commanding officer. Perhaps for that reason, MacArthur gave Patton command of the 3^rd Cavalry, the troops who were most immediately tasked with dispersing the Bonus Army marchers. Although Patton would later state that he found the assignment “a most distasteful form of service,” he also singled out the presence of “Bolsheviks” among the marchers as part of the necessity of this extreme military action—and he and the 3^rd certainly did not mitigate the intensity of their assault on these unarmed veterans. Given Patton’s subsequent treatment of soldiers under his command, let’s just say I’m not surprised.
3. Eisenhower: I have to admit that I was significantly more surprised the first time I learned that another of MacArthur’s chief lieutenants in 1932 was Major Dwight D. Eisenhower. To his credit, Eisenhower was apparently much more vocal at the time in opposing the military action against the Bonus Army, later recalling (in the context of his increasingly fraught relationship to MacArthur in the Korean War era) about his conversation with his commanding officer, “I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there.” But lifelong military man that he was, Eisenhower also fully embodied the chain of command, as illustrated not only by his nonetheless taking part in the army’s action against the Bonus Army, but also by his subsequently drafting the official incident report that called MacArthur’s conduct justified. Yesterday’s subject Smedley Butler notwithstanding, for the most part a central thread of military history is the tendency to close ranks.

Last General Studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Generals or other military histories you’d highlight?