We Supported the Russian's... Crimean War...

[5fish]

We supported the Russians during the Crimean war. It was mainly came from the southern and the western parts of the nation. We were officially neutral but we sent aid to the Russians and build their ships in our shipyards.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/hi...when_america_and_russia_were_friends_368.html

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The United States stayed neutral during the war, but it was hardly inactive. The press and the general public were particularly pro-Russian, though there were exceptions (to be discussed below). Washington sent food and material goods to Russia and helped the Imperial Navy by building its warships in New York’s massive shipyards. American doctors flocked to Crimea, where most of the world’s press focused its attention, in order to help the overwhelmed medical establishment of the Russian Empire.

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The two future superpower rivals had more in common than mere future greatness, though. Both were expanding rapidly, gobbling up huge swaths of territory at the expense of isolated polities like the Khiva Khanate and the Sioux confederacy, and hapless autocracies like Mexico and the Ottoman Empire. Russia and the United States also shared common foes - France and the U.K. - due mostly to the fact that American and Russian expansion was beginning to step on French and British toes. Both empires - one democratic, the other autocratic - also had looming labor crises that overshadowed everything they did in international affairs: slavery and serfdom.

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The reaction of the American press to the British and French invasion of Crimea was not entirely pro-Russian, of course. In fact, the press was split largely along regional (or sectional) lines: New England’s press mostly supported the United Kingdom while the Southern and Western press supported Russia, just like during the lead up to the War of 1812. The sectional divisions were similar in another way, too; there were calls, once again, for the New England states to secede from the republic and join the British Empire. Not everybody in New England supported the British, especially shipbuilders who profited handsomely from their dealings with the Russian Imperial Navy

 

[5fish]

Here is another article...

When America Took Russia’s Side in the Fight for Crimea | OZY

America and Russia used to be the best of friends. Here’s what happened and why it fell apart.

www.ozy.com

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“Both the United States and Russia saw advantages in good relations with the other to offset the power of Britain, particularly Britain’s naval power,” says David Foglesong, a history professor at Rutgers University. While the U.S. did not have much military might, its mercantile prowess was growing. So the U.S. and the Russian empire signed a commercial treaty in 1832 to formalize a blossoming relationship. Soon, America found a great market for its sewing machines, and Russia used American expertise to help build the St. Petersburg–Moscow railroad and a network of telegraph lines, for a modernization under Tsar Nicholas I.

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In October 1853, the Crimean War broke out when Turkey, later joined by Great Britain and France, fought back against Russian incursion into Turkish territory along the Danube River. Much of the fighting eventually took place across the Black Sea in Russian Crimea as the allies went on the offensive with a yearlong siege of Sevastopol. America was determined to stay out of Europe’s wars, but it managed to help its Russian pals. American doctors went to the front lines to help patch up injured Russians, America signed a trade agreement with Russia and the U.S. sent in supplies — Samuel Colt even shipped over weapons. But perhaps the biggest American role was an intangible one: U.S. public opinion was on Russia’s side, and dispatches from America were widely read among Russian elites. “Without American sympathies, Russians would have felt alienated totally against all of Europe, all the civilized countries of that time,” Kurilla says.

snip... maybe our friendship with Russia kept France and the Brits out of our civil war...

A battered Russia accepted the loss of some territory and a neutral Black Sea in an 1856 peace deal. Its American partnership only strengthened as Russian warships were built at the New York shipyards. A few years later, America fell into its Civil War. Russia had just abolished serfdom and stood by the Federal cause, even sending its fleet to New York. It was mostly out of self-interest: Russia wanted to avoid having its ships bottled up in the Black Sea if war broke out again. But it also was a major public relations coup for the North and sent a message to France and Britain. In the unlikely event the European powers thought seriously about intervening for the South, they now knew that to do so would mean fighting Russia too

 

[5fish]

This is an interesting summary of an article...

Southern Military Interests in the Crimean War

When the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Turkey, Britain, and France, erupted in the mid-nineteenth century, the Southern section (the states of the future Confederacy) of the United State...

www.tandfonline.com

When the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Turkey, Britain, and France, erupted in the mid-nineteenth century, the Southern section (the states of the future Confederacy) of the United States followed the battles and military maneuvers of the conflict intently. Generals, heroes, and tactics of all the belligerents were subjects of speculation. Poems, parodies, and articles were rife in Southern newspapers about the war. The South bemoaned what it considered a lack of action, and enjoyed comparing it with America's previous war, naturally to the advantage of the U.S. As the war ran its course, the bulk of Southern sympathy lay with the Russians, possibly because of a similar labor system—serfdom in Russia and slavery in the South. The heroic stand of Sebastopol, the last great Russian bastion, was lauded by the South and, when it finally fell, its loss was bemoaned. Not only the South, but all America was interested in the war and future Civil War Northern generals McClellan and Hallack, along with other military personnel, were sent to the Crimea as observers.