In 1932, in the darkest days of the Depression, unemployed World War I veterans marched on Washington, D.C., looking for an advance on the bonus compensation promised to them years earlier. After camping throughout Washington for two months, the veterans were driven out by force. The U.S. Army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and his officers Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, drove the veterans from Washington and burned their camps and the Bonus Army had become a poltiical liability for President Herbert Hoover. In 1936, Congress finally agreed to pay the Bonus and nearly four million veterans benefited. The epic march set in motion a string of events that influenced the rights of veterans, including WWII's GI bill, plus the rights of citizens to assemble and petition the government.