The United States remained formally neutral during the Second Boer War. Although the U.S. press and the administration of President William McKinley favored the British Empire, many Americans sympathized with the Boer republics and some traveled to South Africa to fight as foreign volunteers in the conflict. Some of these American volunteers were taken as prisoners-of-war by the British, leading to a minor diplomatic crisis until negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne led to their repatriation in 1902.