The Crimean War was remarkable for the public attention focused upon it. Fenton went out to the Crimea in February 1855, funded by the publisher Thomas Agnew but under royal patronage. His view of the soldiers and the landscape presents the character of the war rather than its heroism. His portrait of Colin Campbell is a picture of a man etched with fatigue and anxiety. On 9 April 1855, Fenton wrote of him: "Sir Colin Campbell I have not yet got; he is up at four every morning and either writing and not to be disturbed, or scampering about".