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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:
“Your Soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their death. The brilliant assault on Marye’s Heights of their Irish Brigade was beyond description. Why, my darling, we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines.”<ref>George E. Pickett and LaSalle Corbell Pickett, The Heart of a Soldier: As Revealed in the Intimate Letters of Genl. George E. Pickett (New York: S. Moyle, 1913), 66.</ref>
Neither Pickett nor Hutton was Irish; therefore, the Confederate cheers given for the men of the Brigade were given in recognition of the bravery that was displayed. Ethnicity did not play a part in the display of admiration as the combatants were no longer countrymen.
