tein believed the campaign was over for that year and the
Swedes in winter quarters, and was taken completely by surprise. Had
the King given battle that night, he would have wiped the enemy
out. Two things, in themselves of little account, delayed him: a
small brook that crossed his path, and the freshly plowed fields.
His men were tired after the long march and he decided to let them
rest. It was Wallenstein's chance. Overnight he posted his army
north of the highway that leads from Luetzen to Leipzig, dug deep the
ditches that enclosed it, and made breastworks of the dirt. Sunrise
found sheltered behind them twenty-seven thousand seasoned veterans
to whom Gustav Adolf could oppose but twenty thousand; but he had
more guns and they were better served.

As the day broke the Swedish army, drawn up in battle array, intoned
Luther's hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God," and cheered the King.
He wore a leathern doublet and a gray mantle. To the pleadings of
his officers that he put on armor he replied only, "God is my
armor." "To-day," he cried as he rode along the lines, "will end all
our hardships." He himself took command of the right wing, the
gallant Duke Bernhard of the left. As at Breitenfeld, the rallying
cry was, "God with us!"

The King hoped to crush his enemy utterly, and the whole line
attacked at once with great fury. From the start victory leaned
toward the Swedish army. Then suddenly in the wild tumult of battle
a heavy fog settled upon the field. What followed was all confusion.
No one knows the rights of it to this day. The King led his famous
yellow and blue regiments against the enemy's left. "The black
fellows there," he shouted, pointing to the Emperor's cuirassiers in
their black armor, "attack them!" Just then an adjutant reported
that his infantry was hard pressed. "Follow me," he commanded, and,
clapping spurs to his horse, set off at full speed for the
threatened quarter. In the fog he lost his way and ran into the
cuirassiers. His two attendants were shot down and a bullet crushed
the King's right arm. He tried to hide the fact that he was wounded,
but pain and loss of blood made him faint and he asked the Duke of
Lauenburg who rode with him to help him out of the crush. At that
moment a fresh troop of horsemen bore down upon them and their
leader, Moritz von Falkenberg, shot the King through the body with
the exultant cry, "You I have long sought!" The words had hardly
left his lips when he