I suspect that for the overwhelming majority of Americans our involvement with Russia began around the end of WW2. Some few may recall that there was actually a meeting in the middle of the war—1943, to be exact—but that’s about the size of it for most people. Oh, wait, there was that business of Russia selling Alaska to us—what was that about? 1867, right?
But how many realize that the US and Russia were actually allies quite a long time ago? Like, during our Civil War? And that Russia saved America?
Now, when I say that Russia “saved” America, well, maybe I’m exaggerating—it’s one of those what-if history things. What if Russia hadn’t sent its Baltic Fleet across the wild Atlantic to New York City to patrol the East Coast down to Washington, D.C.? What if Russia hadn’t sent its Pacific fleet to San Francisco to patrol our West Coast? But that did happen, during the period 1863-1864, beginning after a crushing Union setback at Chickamauga.
Why would Russia do that? Those were the days when two aggressive imperialist powers, Britain and France, still had notions of empire in the Americas, and the American Civil War seemed to offer a real opportunity. But the Russian fleet deployments put a spanner in that scheme. The deployment to New York City, for example, was a warning to Britain, which had a huge naval base in Halifax.
The roots of this episode go back to the Crimean war. In the mid-19th century Russia was involved in a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire. France and Britain, always looking out for the best interests of subject Christian populations in the Ottoman Empire, sided with the Turks and dealt Russia a financially ruinous and humiliating defeat. This was why Russia was willing to help America, watching out back and freeing up the US Navy for operations against the Confederacy. Once the tide of the Civil War had decisively turned the fleets were withdrawn.
That wasn’t the end of this mutual cooperation and good will, however. Tsar Aleksander II was concerned that Britain—which was a serious rival to Russia in the Pacific—might easily capture Alaska if tensions with Britain once more came to war. And so Russia sold Alaska to the US.
Here is a nice half hour video explaining this long forgotten episode:
How Holy Russia Saved the American Republic
On the morning of September 24, 1863, the citizens of the City of New York woke up to see something in the city's harbor that had never been seen there before. Anchored in the great harbor was a fleet of Imperial Russian war ships. America was at war. Not with Russia, but with itself. It was a dark period for the young nation. The Union of the North had just suffered a devastating, and demoralizing defeat at Chickamauga. The battle was the worst Union defeat in the entire war, and ranked second-highest in number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg. The increasing prospect of an ultimate Confederate victory in the war, and the real possibility of an imminent attack from Britain and France in support of the southern rebellion left America vulnerable, and without allies. President Lincoln and his young nation were alone, and surrounded by enemies. America had one friend...
The Time Russia Saved America
If you have the patience the book Dreadnought, around 1000 pages, is a grand overview of the European Politics that led to WWI. Much was afoot then.
Goes back farther than that. Catherine the Great, Tsarina of all the Russias was also a German Princess obliged by marriage treaties to provide her cousin, George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector Hanover, with thousands of German mercenaries. Essentially, the British should have been able to expect an extra 10k so Hessians in their 1776 invasion of New York. But Catherine decided that she liked the Americans more, and she'd prefer to use those German mercenaries in her own army to conquer the Crimea. She also became the first European sovereign after Louis XVI to recognize the independence of the United States, and John Adams had his first and favorite boy, John Quincy sent off to Petrograd as part of one of the first American ministries to a European capital. Nice guy, Ivan.