The field chaplain of Duke Bernard says in a letter to a friend: "By a first pistol shot Gustavus was wounded in the arm so that the bone stuck out through the coat. By another ball, which he received in the back below the right shoulder, he was thrown from his horse and fell dying. We should not even know the circumstances if we had not them from a young page who served the monarch."
Word of this awful disaster reached Bernard, Duke of Weimar, who immediately sent the word to General Knipenhausen, who prepared in some measure for orders to retreat. But Bernard shouted, "Now for revenge! Victory or death!" and Knipenhausen's division took new heart and sprang into the fight.
The death of the commander usually means defeat, but these gallant Swedes and Germans made it mean splendid victory. They were so enraged by the king's death that the Imperial army was literally stampeded, beaten, routed, driven from the field.
Pappenheim had received Wallenstein's letter at Halle, and without waiting to get his infantry together, he took eight regiments of cavalry and literally galloped to Lutzen, stopping only under necessity.
Pappenheim hoped for a personal encounter with Gustavus and pressed far into the midst of the fight, where he was struck by two musket balls and carried from the field. He was a great cavalry leader, and with his death success deserted the Imperial arms. The army of Wallenstein, what was left of it, retreated toward Leipzig, leaving the Swedish army in possession of the battlefield. More than nine thousand men lay dead on the field, and historians say of the Imperial army scarcely a man escaped from that field uninjured. The entire plain of Lutzen was strewn with men dead, dying, starving, freezing, wounded unto death.
Pappenheim died at Leipzig the day after the battle. When he fell his troops gave up the fight. He sent a message to Wallenstein: "I die with joy, because Gustavus, the enemy of my faith, dies with me."
Wallenstein's rage was something fearful. All his officers who had fled from the field were beheaded the next day at his command. He concluded Saxony's wealth would not justify the risk of remaining on its soil, and the victors took possession of all strongholds which had been occupied by Austrians. Wallenstein's defeat was complete, and the Emperor Ferdinand, and all the world, knew that chains could never again shackle northern Europe. It was a victory, but the Protestant army had paid a fearful price.
As the men returned to camp after the great battle, the loved king came not to welcome and thank them. After a long search the body of the king was found with the common crowd of dead on the battle field. The body had been stripped not only of its ornaments but of clothing by the plunderers, who at that time were in the wake of every battle. That beautiful body was covered with blood and wounds and had been trampled down by horses, so that it was scarcely recognizable.
A funeral service was conducted in the little local church over the body (which had been placed in a plain coffin) by a schoolmaster, and a Swedish officer made a short oration, in which he set forth the Christian character, the high aims, of this divinely-led king, whom Weber calls "the purest character of that deeply agitated time," that great king of a brave people, whom history rightly names Gustavus the Great.
The next day the mortal body was taken to Weissenfels, where a druggist named Kasparins embalmed it. He found nine wounds. After this the remains were given to his queen and his soldiers. The sorrow seemed overwhelming, and the generals were simply stupefied by grief and by the magnitude of their loss.