Before the actual fighting erupted, he managed to visit the "South" pretending working for "The Illustrated London News," with William Howard Russell, a British correspondent, and made sketches of life in Charleston, Savannah, Montgomery, Pensacola, and New Orleans. Throughout the war, he traveled extensively the eastern and western theaters documenting the Battle of Port Royal, the fight between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac," the Siege of Corinth and the Siege of Vicksburg, among others. He was with the Union forces during the battles of Antietam and Chickamauga and took part in Sherman's March to the Sea.