"My desire to do a painting to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg led me to Gettysburg in early 1988. I was anxious to do a battle scene that would be instantly recognizable to the Civil War buff as Gettysburg, the turning point of the war. After a great deal of reading, studying the battlefield and consulting with chief historian Kathy Harrison, and historians John Heiser and Bob Prosperi of the National Military Park, I felt the view looking south at Cemetery Ridge just north of the angle would do it all."

"In one painting, I was able to capture the Union troops firmly entrenched behind the stone wall during Pickett's Charge, with the famed Angle and Copse of Trees as well as the identifiable Little and Big Round Tops in the background. In the right foreground are soldiers of the 22nd and 26th North Carolina charging headlong into the overwhelming fire of the 14th Connecticut. In the right middle ground, a soldier from the 26th North Carolina in the shell jacket and blue pants with his back towards the viewer, wears an "Iron Brigade" hat as a trophy, taken from a fallen Union soldier in the fierce fighting of two days earlier. Pennsylvania regiments battle in the Angle in front of the Copse of Trees with Armistead's Virginians as the Garibaldi Guard rush in as reinforcements from the left. The cannon, firing double canisters at close range, from Arnold's battery, takes its deadly toll. This was the moment when the Southerners started to surrender and retreat. For me, this was the High Water Mark of the Confederacy."