rabands at
Fortress Monroe, said to number 411-435, were embarked.[29] An
infectious disease broke out through the presence on board of patients
from the military hospital on Craney Island and from twenty to thirty
died. On the arrival in the colony no hospitals were ready, no houses
were provided, and the resulting conditions were appalling. Kock was
sent along as Governor, and he is said to have put on the air of a
despot and by his neglect of the sick and needy to have made himself
obnoxious.

Rumors of the situation came to the President and he sent a special
agent, D. C. Donnohue, who investigated the matter and made a report.
Donnohue elaborately described the deplorable situation of the
inhabitants, the wretched condition of the small houses and the
prevalence of sickness. He further reported that the Haytian
government was unwilling that emigrants should remain upon the island
and that the emigrants themselves desired to return to the United
States. Acting upon the report, the President ordered the Secretary of
War to dispatch a vessel to bring home the colonists desiring to
return.[30] On the fourth of March the vessel set sail and landed at
the Potomac River opposite Alexandria on the twentieth of the same
month. On the twelfth of March, 1864, a report was submitted to the
Senate showing what portion of the appropriation for colonization had
been expended and the several steps which had been taken for the
execution of the acts of Congress.[31] On July 2, 1864, Congress
repealed its appropriation and no further effort was made at
colonization.[32]

The failure of this project did not dim the vision of the successful
colonization of the freed slaves in the mind of President Lincoln. As
late as April, 1865, according to report, the following conversation
is said to have ensued between the President and General Benjamin F.
Butler: "But what shall we do with the Negroes after they are free?"
inquired Lincoln. "I can hardly believe that the South and North can
live in peace unless we get rid of the Negroes. Certainly they cannot,
if we don't get rid of the Negroes whom we have armed and disciplined
and who have fought with us, to the amount, I believe, of some 150,000
men. I believe that it would be better to export them all to some
fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to
themselves. You have been a staunch friend of the race from the time
you first advised me to enlist them at New Orleans.