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Approximately 1,200 men of the Irish Brigade went into battle that December day; little more than half returned unscathed. The casualties of the Brigade, including killed, wounded, and missing, numbered 545. Fifty of that number represent the men who were killed on the field. <ref>''The U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies'', 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1888), vol. 21, p. 129.</ref> McCarter recalled that, “every third man had fallen and, along some parts of the line, every second soldier had been killed or wounded.”<ref> McCarter, ''My Life'', 179.</ref> Union Captain D.P. Conyngham described the battle as a “wholesale slaughter of human beings.”<ref> Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade'', 343.</ref>

From a nearby hillside, Confederate General Robert E. Lee watched the Brigade in action and claimed, “Never were men so brave.”<ref>Tucker, ''Irish Confederates'', 63.</ref> Private E.H. Sutton of the 24th Georgia remembered that after the Union sounded retreat, “Private James Williams was so overcome with emotion that he “leaped upon the top of the [stone] wall and gave three ringing cheers.”<ref>Tucker, 63.</ref> Confederate General George Pickett also witnessed the action at Fredericksburg and wrote in a letter to his wife the following day: