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284
Final attack and triumph of
tlie Swedes. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Recovery of the
king’s body.
[1628—
diers, who had served in many of the king’s cam-
paigns, even the enemy were obliged to acknow-
ledge, that their dead bodies covered the same spot
whicli they in life defended ^. The carnage among
them was so great, that five out of six men were
killed or wounded *. The third Swedish brigade,
under colonel Charles Hard, which was nearmost
to the cavalry, sutiered less ; yet, after the battle,
liardly more than four hundred men of it i-emauied.
During this whole time, general Kniphausen kept
his brigades in the second line, and his reserve,
out of the conflict, which, it is said,
" was no small
cause of the victory, as the troops of the first line
found here a point of support in a great and un-
broken mass ;
and duke Bernard was not a little
joyful, when, at the lifting of the fog, he saw Knip-
hausen, whom he, in his own phrase, feared to find
hewn in pieces, now in so good order." For some
time before sunset, the fog again broke, and it was
clear, though only for half an hour, which gave
duke Bernard opportunity to survey his position,
and encourage the army to a new assault. The
tired soldiers were heard crying to one another,
"
Comrade, shall we to it
again ?
"
and thereupon
embracing each other with vows to conquer or
die ^. This last charge won the victory of Lutzen,
and even Pappenheim’s infantry, which came up in
the twilight, was carried away in the general flight
of the Imperialists. The battle lasted nine hours.
The victors spent the night on the field, where ten
thousand had fallen along with Gustavus Adolphus.
We must not pass by two accounts of the battle,
preserved in the Saxon archives ^. The one, a let-
ter of some lines to the elector of Saxony from count
Brandenstein, the Swedish commandant at Naum-
bui’g, written on the night of the 6th November,
states that the battle lasted the whole day with
extreme violence, that the king fell, shot through
the arm, body, and head; but that the general of
the infantry, duke Bernard, the major-general of
tiie royal armies, Kniphausen, the prince of An-
halt, and the valour of the superior and inferior offi-
cers and soldiers, compelled the enemy to quit the
field with the loss of many men and all his pieces,
except three. The other, a more detailed narrative
to the elector, dated the Ilth November, is drawn
up by two officers, who were stationed in duke Ber-
nard’s wing ’.
They begin with mentionhig the
skirmish at Rij)pach, where, by the hamlet of
Posern, is a narrow pass, and beyond it an emi-
nence; on this a line of imperial cavalry showed
itself, which the king drove off, and descended into
the plain on the 5th, in the evening. There the
enemy were still scattered in the hamlets, and the
king’s cannon played ei’o the watch was set in
their head-(|uarters. As darkness had now set
in, the king kept his army in battle array; the ene-
my’s watch-fires were .seen in the villages. With
the morning grey of the 6lh the king continued his
march against the enemy; prisoners brought infor-
mation that Pappenheim had marched with eight
’ "
They were seen lying dead afterward by their arms, in
the very order in wliich a little while before they had stood
living with great bravery and valour." Khevenhiiller,
xii 194.
" Swed. Intel, iii. U5.
’•
Swed. Intel, iii. 148.
« Published by A<lam Fr. Glaffey, de gladio Gustavi ."Vdol-
phi, Lips. 174!), and copied into Ilallenbergs Collections.
? The narrative is in the form of a postscript lo the before-
regiinents to Halle. When the king had come near
Lutzen the enemy shot with muskets from the
walls ;
on the side of the town stood four troops of
cavalry; above, at the windmills, they saw a line of
cavalry and infantry, and could plainly make out
that more men were coming up. Then the king
advanced in order of battle on the right of the
town towards the canal, and when both armies
were facing each other, charged straight upon the
enemy. Here they began to shoot first some
salvoes from two demi-cannon, which the enemy
answered as well from his battery at the windmills
as from the batteries he had on the side of Schei-
ditz. Thus keen firing on both sides continued for
about the space of an hour, till the king’s right
wing was so far advanced, that its rear was almost
turned towards Ranstadt, whereat the action began
with horse and foot on both sides, amidst incessant
firing. The enemy’s right wing, which at first gave
ground, at length obtained firm footing at the wind-
mills, until here also they had penetrated into the
enemy’s intrenchments, and turned his own guns
upon him. Then count Pappenheim came back,
and the action began anew with inexpressible heat
on both sides, until night put an end to it. Yet the
king’s army kept the field, taking the enemy’s ar-
tillery, with the greatest part of his ammunition.
But the king himself, having ventured too boldly,
and fallen with three troops of horse upon eight
companies of cuirassiers, was shot through the arm
and breast, and died lamentably.
The lifeless body of the hei-o was found stripped,
trampled, disfigured by blood and wounds, with the
face towards the ground. The Finns under Stal-
handske had recovered it. It was brought in an
ammunition waggon to the hamlet of Meuchen, be-
hind the Swedish lines. A wi-itten narration of the
proceedings at its removal was preserved till 1826
(when it was consumed by fire) among the de-
scendants of the person who was then schoolmas-
ter of the village, purporting
^
that the king’s body
was brought in the night between the 6th and 7th
November, 1632, from the battle-field to the church
of the village, attended by several troopers and
officers, who rode into the church and round the
altar, before which the body was laid; it w,as so
disfigured by wounds, that it was considered need-
ful forthwith to open it, after which a portion of
the entrails was interred in the church^ ;
the
schoolmaster previously performing divine service
in thenight, and one of the military making a funeral
oration. Thereafter the body was carried into the
schoolmaster’s house, and this being found too
small, into that of a neighbour. Here it was laid
upon a table (which is still
preserved), while the
schoolmaster, who was also the joiner, prepared
the simple coffin in which, next day, it was con-
veyed to Weissenfels. With the body a trooper,
who had been wounded at the king’s side, had come
to Meuchen, where he stayed until his wounds were
mentioned memorial, which was written by direction of
duke Bernard (by Bodo von Bodenhausen) to the elector,
Nov. 11, 1632. The postscript bears the signatures John
George Wilztumb of Echstedt and Eric Volkmar Vei lepsch.
8
Compare Death of Gustavus Adolphus by Philippi,
assessor of taxes to the king of Prussia in Lutzen, Leipsic.
1832, p. 79.
9 The spot, recognizable by the Swedish arms (seen through
a coat of whitewash), was examined in 1832, and a halfrotten
urn of oak-w ood found under the raised stone in the wall. 1. c.
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