Alfred Edward Mathews, a renowned illustrator born in England in 1831, immigrated with his family to Ohio two years later and served during the Civil War in the 1st Ohio Light Artillery before transferring to the 31st Ohio Infantry. He created more than thirty sketches as a soldier from scenes he witnessed or from firsthand accounts, and the drawing of the death of Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer at the Battle of Mill Springs was made from approximately the spot where this scene can still be compared to the landscape with remarkable accuracy. Because photography was still in its infancy and required subjects to stand still for several minutes, battles could not be photographed, so newspapers and weekly magazines depended on artists to provide the most accurate battle images by observing combat or visiting battlefields soon afterward. After the war, three firms hired Mathews to prepare his drawings for lithograph production. He settled in Colorado in 1866 and died there in 1874.