After the rebel Generals Toribio Ortega Ramírez and Pánfilo Natera García could not finish the place off, Pancho Villa arrived in Ojinaga with a large army, thus displacing the forces of Salvador Mercado from the city.

After being appointed head of the revolutionary movement in Chihuahua, Pancho Villa reorganized the Northern Division, thus having more than 5,000 men integrating troops of infantry, cavalry and artillery weapons, in addition to having support services such as health, transportation and food.

[1] When leaving for Ojinaga, Mercado refused to start combat with the villistas, foreseeing that if Pancho Villa pursued him to the border, he would be helped by the North Americans and thus could return to the capital of the country.

Only one company showed interest in the offer: Mutual Film, led by Harry Aitken: a contract was signed with them on January 5, stipulating that revolutionaries would receive an advance of $25,000 and a fifth of subsequent revenues.

While Rosalío Hernández put a brigade called Leales de Camargo on standby, Villa telegraphed Maclovio Herrera to the south by telegram and then took a train to Chihuahua on January 5 at 2pm in the company of Raúl Madero and Luis Aguirre Benavides.

The task of the brigades of Hernández, Toribio Ortega, and Herrera was to lock Ojinaga in a semicircle, leaving only the side facing the United States free.

Herrera and Hernández's men penetrated the city through the cemetery, in the direction of the watchtower, to squeeze the defenders toward the Río Bravo border river, while in the north, Trinidad Rodríguez approached from a ranch called San Francisco.

In a matter of hours, the revolutionaries swept away the defense of the city, the Confederates fled their rifles, threw themselves into the river, and tried to swim across to the other side, the Texas Presidium.

[1] Pascual Orozco, an ally associated with Shafter, fled to San Antonio, where his wife was waiting, but many of the fugitives were arrested in the United States.