Charles Bowdre was born into a relatively prominent family in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1848. They moved to Mississippi when Charlie was six in 1854 where he worked the family farm. Looks like Charlie left home around sixteen and his life was somewhat a mystery until he arrived in the New Mexican Territory in 1874. Charlie and Doc Scurlock briefly owned and operated a cheese factory on the Gila River in Arizona. Evidently making cheese was not their forte and they ended up in Lincoln County, NM where he met George and Frank Coe and Ab Saunders. They joined together in several vigilante posses and even broke into the poorly guarded Lincoln County Jail and took cattle rustler Jesus Largo from Sheriff Saturnino Baca and hung him on the outskirts of town. Rule of Law in the territory pretty much depended on who had the most guns. In 1877 there is a record of Charlie and a few friends getting arrested for getting drunk and 'shooting up Lincoln'. No charges were ever filed for hanging Largo.
But the Lincoln County War was really Charlie's claim to fame when he hooked up with Billy and the rest in 1878 and fought on the Tunstall-McSween side. Charlie was present during the Blackwater Creek Massacre where the Regulators shot and killed the killers of John Tunstall, each taking a turn putting an individual bullet into their victims. Charlie was also the one who shot, killed, and was charged with the death of Buckshot Roberts at Blazer's Mills after Buckshot wounded him. He was also present at the Battle of Lincoln for the full siege, so that gives him the trifecta in the Lincoln County War.
Charlie eventually went back to working as a cowboy and married a 25 year old Mexican woman, Manuela Herrea, a few months before his death. She was the sister of Doc Scurlock's wife, Antonia. Looked like Charlie was trying to settle down a little and straighten his life out. That didn't last long. In 1880 Charlie again joined up with Billy to ambush Pat Garrett at Ft. Sumner, NM. A gunfight ensued but all of Billy's gang escaped alive. On December 23 Charlie was not so lucky. Billy and his gang were hiding out in a stone house at Stinking Springs, NM and when Charlie went out to feed the horses Garrett's men riddled him with rifle fire thinking he was Billy. Charlie supposedly fell back into the house and Billy put a gun in his hand and told him to 'Take a few of them with you.' Charlie stumbled out the door and his last words were 'I wish....I wish' before he died. He supposedly had this blood stained photo of him and Manuela in his coat pocket. Charlie was buried in Ft. Sumner and would soon be joined by Billy awhile later in the same grave, which has become a well known New Mexican tourist destination today. I am sure much of his story has been romanticized, but there is a great quote from the newest Billy the Kid movie "The Kid" from Pat Garrett's character.......
"It doesn't matter what's true. It matters the story they tell when you are gone."
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