Some paintings take years to develop. I did a painting of His Supreme Moment in 1995. More than five years later, I liked the subject so much that I decided to paint it again as a vertical composition. I left the right foreground without figures to lead the eye into the main center of interest, Robert E. Lee. In checking with park historian Frank O'Reilly of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, I learned that regiments from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were at the Chancellor house at the moment Lee rode by. This gave me the opportunity to show the South Carolina flag in the left background and the North Carolina flag in the right background. In addition to the Confederate battle flag, Lee's headquarters flag can be seen.

The Chancellor house, aflame in the background, is based on drawings of the house done before the war which were made available to me by Janice Fry, the librarian at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. describes the scene clearly in his biography Stonewall Jackson: "Lee appeared at the front. Weary Southerners-some blackened by smoke, others limping from wounds-yelled hysterically at the sight of their leader. A staff officer commented, 'I thought that it must have been from such a scene that men in ancient days rose to the dignity of the gods.'"