So he went back to his farm on the order of Charles and took his moles with him. He was a bit sobered by the thought that he had been one of a body who had openly defied the king, and therefore he was an outlaw. To submit quietly now meant branding and ear-cropping, if not the stake. He called a prayer-meeting at his house--the neighbors came-- they sang and supplicated God, not Charles the First, and then Oliver asked for volunteers to follow him to the government powder-magazine near by, and capture it ere the Royalists used it for the undoing of the Lord's people. "His salvation is nigh unto them that fear Him, that His glory may dwell in the land!" And they went forth, and seized the sleepy guards, who had not been informed that war had begun. The plate belonging to the University was taken care of, so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy, and the classic old campus took on the look of a siege. Cromwell commissioned himself Captain of Horse. It was a farmers' uprising, for freedom is ever a sort of farm-product. Adam Smith says, "All wealth comes from the soil." What he meant to say was "health," not "wealth." Men who fight well, fight for farms--their homes, not flats or hotels. Indians do not fight for reservations. The sturdy come-outer is a man near the soil. Successful revolutions are always fought by farmers, and the government which they create is destroyed by city mobs. Cromwell knew this and said to Cousin John Hampden: "Old, decayed serving-men and tapsters can never encounter gentlemen. To match men of honor you must have God-fearing, sober, serious men who fight for conscience, freedom, and their wives, children, aged parents, and their farms. Give me a few honest men and I will not demand numbers-- save for enemies." And he gathered around him a thousand picked Puritans, men with moles, farmers and herdsmen, who were used to the open. This regiment, which was called "Ironsides," was never beaten, and in time came to be regarded as invincible. The men who composed it compared closely with the valiant and religious Boers, who were overpowered only by starvation and a force of six to one. The Ironsides were like Caesar's Tenth Legion, only different. They went into battle singing the Psalms of David, and never stopped so long as an enemy was in sight, except for prayer. John Forster, who wrote a life of Cromwell in seven volumes, says, "If Oliver Cromwell had never done anything else but muster, teach and discipline this one regiment, his name would have left a sufficient warrant of his greatness."