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Saint Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries

1856 establishments in Washington, D.C.Cemeteries established in the 1850sCemeteries in Washington, D.C.
Saint Elizabeth West Cemetery circa 1897
Saint Elizabeth West Cemetery circa 1897

St. Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries are two historic cemeteries located on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital. The West cemetery has burials from the Civil War and hospital patients. Most of the veterans buried in the West Campus cemetery were patients of the hospital and not casualties of the war. A burial ledger of hospital patients between 1917 and 1983 was transcribed and published in 2008.On the East Campus is the John Howard Cemetery, this cemetery has burials of veterans of multiple conflicts including the Civil War, Spanish–American War, World War I and II, a lone veteran of the War of 1812, and a Black Seminole Scout from the Seminole War. Access to the cemetery today is controlled by GSA with only authorized persons allowed.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Saint Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Saint Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries
Saint Elizabeths Road Southeast, Washington

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N 38.854827 ° E -77.003513 °
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Civil War Cemetary

Saint Elizabeths Road Southeast
20373 Washington
District of Columbia, United States
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Saint Elizabeth West Cemetery circa 1897
Saint Elizabeth West Cemetery circa 1897
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St. Elizabeths Hospital
St. Elizabeths Hospital

St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast, Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health. It opened in 1855 under the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States. Housing over 8,000 patients at its peak in the 1950s, the hospital had a fully functioning medical-surgical unit, a school of nursing, accredited internships and psychiatric residencies. Its campus was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.Since 2010, the hospital's functions have been limited to the portion of the east campus operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. The remainder of the east campus is slated for redevelopment by the District of Columbia. The West Campus was transferred to the United States Department of Homeland Security for its headquarters and its subsidiary agencies. St. Elizabeths Hospital campus also has the joint tenant of the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building with hundreds of Coast Guard personnel. The campus grounds contain the Saint Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries. Burials were performed on the West campus beginning in 1856. Approximately 450 graves of Civil War veterans and an unknown number of civilians are buried on the West campus. In 1873, the three-quarter-acre West Campus burying ground was deemed full, and a new cemetery was opened on the East Campus. Approximately 2,050 military and 3,000 civilian interments occurred on the nine-acre cemetery on the East Campus over the next 120 years. The hospital was under the control of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services until 1987. At that time, ownership of its east wing was transferred by the federal government to the District of Columbia.

Bonus Army
Bonus Army

The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or "Bonus Marchers". The demonstrators were led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant. Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment with compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates. On July 28, 1932, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shot at the protestors, and two veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned. 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. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home. In 1936, Congress overrode President Roosevelt's veto and paid the veterans their bonus nine years early.