He was a resident of Mier but applied for Porcion 17 in Revilla (Guerrero Viejo), where he had a ranch at a place called La Santisima Trinidad.

Soon, considerable looting of Tejano stores in San Antonio, coupled with out-and-out insubordination, broke up the volunteers before they could march on Mexico and start a major war.

Relations between Texas and Mexico worsened, especially after the Mexican general Adrián Woll and fourteen hundred troops again captured San Antonio in September.

Houston once again summoned Somervell to organize and lead the volunteers but hoped that the Texas general would remain north of the Nueces River.

Here a mutiny erupted in which 189 men followed William S. Fisher, Ewen Cameron, and Thomas Green into the Mexican town of Mier.

On December 23, 1842, Fisher and most of the men crossed the Rio Grande and entered the Ciudad Mier, where they met no resistance.

As far as the Mexicans were concerned, the Texans were privateers on an unauthorized raid and entitled to no consideration as military prisoners of war.

The Texans tried to make a run back for the border, but they hadn't bargained on the harsh and dry conditions in the mountains.

[2] When he heard about the break-out, Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered that the recaptured prisoners, some 176 men, be put to death immediately.

The Governor of Coahuila, Francisco Mexía, refused to carry out the order and pleaded with foreign ministers in Mexico City to persuade the president to change his mind.

Santa Anna promised the foreign ministers that he would show mercy, and then modified his decree to order the decimation of the Mier prisoners; in other words, the execution of every tenth man.

However, he had earned the hostility of Mexican Colonel Antonio Canales Rosillo, for his role in the embarrassing defeat in his battle (July 1842 at Fort Lipantitlán, near Corpus Christi, Texas),[3] and for leading the escape attempt.

In 1847, during the Mexican–American War, the remains of the men executed in the Black Bean Episode were retrieved from Mexico and interred near La Grange, Texas, (with those who died in the Dawson Massacre), at which site has been established a monument.

The operation was assigned to Juan 'El Chapiado' González, from Mier, and Santiago 'El Chago' Guerra, from Agualeguas (Nuevo León).

Family and acquaintances of these men relate that after hiding the weapons, the group was directed to travel to the Cantina de la Loma del Peligro bar, many miles down the highway leading from Mier to Ciudad Guerrero.