SANTA Fe rose before me, a camp in wood, plaster and stone, a camp with a palace, a camp with churches.

Built of a piece where no town had stood, built that Majesty and its Court and its Army might have roofs and walls, not tents, for so long a siege, it covered the plain, a city raised in a night.

The siege had been long as the war had been long.
Hidalgo Spain and simple Spain were gathered here in great squares and ribbons of valor, ambition, emulation, desire of excitement and of livelihood, and likewise, I say it, in pieces not small, herded and brought here without any "I say yes" of their own, and to their misery.
There held full flavor of crusade, as all along the war had been preached as a crusade.

Holy Church had here her own grandees, cavaliers and footmen.

They wore cope and they wore cowl, and on occasion many endued themselves with armor and hacked and hewed with an earthly sword.
At times there seemed as many friars and priests as soldiers.