The report in the Illustrated Times - Saturday 19 July 1856 p44 confirms that the victims were indeed horribly injured. It reads:

"Five were killed as they lay, nine others were dreadfully mangled, and three of them died shortly after. Fortunately, the bulkheads remained firm, and the Mail, though thus cut down to the water's edge. kept afloat, with the stern of the Excelsior so firmly imbedded in the wreck, that it took upwards of an hour to get her free. The scene under the spardeck¹ was most heartrending. The mangled bodies of the dead Irishmen lay covered with blood, and the wounded were crying for help; some of them being jammed up against the windlass¹, and unable to extricate themselves. When the bodies were brought out they presented a most frightful spectacle. One man's skull was literally stove in, and the protruding brains overlapped the face. Another man seemed to have all his bones broken; and a round tin box, which was in his waistcoat pocket, was embed as flat as a crown¹-piece."