Artist William Waud followed his brother Alfred Waud onto the battlefields as a sketch artist. Trained as an architect in his native England, Willliam Waud recorded the activities of the Army of the James. The grid on the sheet guided the composition of the image for the wood engravers in New York. Before the election, nineteen states enacted legislation allowing soldiers to vote in the field—the first time the nation had confronted the question of absentee voting. Soldiers from those states in the Army of the James were thus able to vote in the U.S. presidential election near Richmond, Virginia. Harper’s Weekly reported “Our soldiers do not by fighting our battles cease to be citizens, but are even more interested than others in the maintenance of the civil institutions for which they are ready to give up their lives. There can be no doubt as to the loyalty and sincerity of these men.” The soldiers vote would help carry Lincoln to victory in the 1864 election.