Reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, a large group of World War I veterans marched to Washington, DC, in the spring of 1932 to demand the immediate payment of a wartime bonus. Nearly 11,000 marchers established a camp at the Anacostia Flats (present-day Anacostia Park), where they created shanties from cardboard boxes and scraps of wood. After Congress refused to meet the Bonus Marchers' demands, President Herbert Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to remove them by force. Police and military personnel, including a tank unit led by Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, attacked the marchers on July 28, 1932, knocking down and setting fire to their shelters. Those not injured in the battle drifted back to their homes without the sought-after bonus. Read more on Bonus Expeditionary Forces March on Washington.