The king's last audible words were: "I am the king of Sweden. I seal this day with my blood the liberty and religion of the German nation." And that heroic soul ascended to God. The page, a boy of eighteen, lived long enough to tell the particulars of that sad story. His father took down his words at his dying bedside. It is the only authentic testimony of the crucial half hour of that awful battle. 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.