On March 17, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was born. A little less than a month later, on April 13, following the outbreak of the American Civil War, Secretary of State William H. Seward “acknowledged receipt” of Cavour's dispatch - which reported the assumption of the title of King of Italy by Vittorio Emanuele II - delivered to him by the then Minister Resident in the United States Giuseppe Bertinatti. What could appear as a bureaucratic formality initiated diplomatic relations and marked the beginning of a friendship that is 160 years old today.

In reality, the diplomatic step gave institutional substance to a bond that had been intertwined for some time and knotted by the contacts of the patriots of the Risorgimento on American soil. Historians recall the active benevolence with which the American side looked to the Italian cause. Traces of this emerge in the expedition of Garibaldi's Thousands departed from Bogliasco, as well as, on the opposite side, in the participation of Italian volunteers in the Civil War.