Andrew W. Warren was born in Chenango County, New York, in 1834 and studied drawing and landscape painting under noted New York City artist Tompkins H. Matteson. During the last year of the Civil War, Warren worked as a special artist for Harper's Weekly with the Army of the Potomac toward the end of the Petersburg Campaign. His first woodcut sketches appear in the November 5, 1864 issue. Immediately after the war, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Drawing at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but he resigned in 1872 because of failing health. He died of consumption within the year at the age of 39.