With the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he remained in Breslau, named lieutenant general in March 1757. During the Battle of Breslau on 22 November 1757, he led a brigade into battle and was shot through his left breast, badly wounded. He remained on his horse, leading his troops, until the animal was itself shot. Despite his own injuries, he mounted five additional horses; the horses were all killed and eventually he collapsed. He was carried to the house of Prince Ferdinand in Breslau, and there the ball was extracted, but he died of his wound two weeks later. He was buried at the evangelical church with little fanfare. In 1851, Frederick William IV included his name on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, among the founders of the modern Prussian state.