Death sentences, later commuted to transportation for life to Van Diemen's land (Tasmania), were imposed on three ringleaders, John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones. A fourth, John Rees, alias 'Jack the Fifer' - 'The Man from the Alamo' - escaped to America, and disappeared, until John Humphries uncovered his trail 160 years later.

A mystery man, who stepped from the crowd to lead the Chartist onslaught on the Westgate, Rees had fought previously in the Texas War of Independence, and was one of the few committed revolutionaries in what the Government believed was a conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. Zephaniah Williams was another shadowy figure.

A bankrupt mine owner and beer-shop keeper, William had only a few months before the Uprising, narrowly escaped transportation for hijacking a colliery owned by two of the most powerful men in Wales.

By reconstructing the lives of Rees and Williams from previously undiscovered documents and sources, the author probes the reasons for an event that continues to baffle historians. His investigation extends from the 'Black Domain' of Monmouthshire's19th Century industrial valleys to Ballahoo Creek in a remote corner of the Tasmanian bush, where Williams established a Welsh mining settlement, and to the banks of the San Antonio River, which Rees swam after escaping execution by the army of Mexican General Santa Anna.