The standard of liberty has become a call to defend the Nephite way. Moroni wants to remove the king-men, the group against which he had first raised the title of liberty (Alma 46). Now, en route to Gideon, he augments his battle-hardened troops with local recruits who are willing to fight for freedom. Freedom, in this case, means the traditional Nephite way of government and religion. It is not necessarily surprising that he is able to raise an army as he passes and yet had been in want of reinforcements. Under the loose hegemony represented by Zarahemlaite government, there would be many who were in smaller towns or hamlets who had not been under the political or social pressure to fight. These would have been the farmers who tended to the fields rather than to political conflicts.