Charlie Bowdre

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Charles Bowdre (1848 – December 23, 1880) was an American cowboy. He was an associate and member of Billy the Kid's gang.

Bowdre was born in Wilkes County, Georgia. When he was three years old, he and his parents moved to Mississippi.

By 1854, young Charlie started working in his father's farm, and as he grew up became an adept farmer.

Much of what Bowdre did between the year in which his last sister was born (1863) and 1874, remains a mystery. It is believed, however, that he abandoned the family's farm to become a wanderer. Records show that by 1874, he had arrived at Lincoln County, New Mexico. There he did little of note until August 5, 1877, when he and a companion were arrested for "shooting up" the town of Lincoln in a drunken frenzy.

With the outbreak of the Lincoln County War in 1878, Bowdre sided with the Tunstall-McSween side, and he met Billy, Jose Chavez y Chavez and the rest of the Kid's associates, including Richard Brewer and Jim French. During the conflict, he was known to have been present with his fellow Regulators when William Morton, Frank Baker, and William McCloskey were killed along the Blackwater Creek on March 9, 1878. Bowdre would also be charged with killing Buckshot Roberts during the gunfight at Blazer's Mills on April 4, 1878.

Bowdre worked as a cowboy on the ranchs of Thomas Yerby and Pete Maxwell as the war went on. But he sometimes took part as a participant in the war. It is not known how many of Billy's activities involved Bowdre.

Bowdre married a twenty five year old Mexican girl, Manuela, some months before his death. The fact that he was recently married when he died makes him less likely to have been involved in the gang's activities during the few weeks that passed between his marriage and his death.

By December 1880, Charlie Bowdre was ready to quit riding with Billy the Kid and surrender for the murder of Buckshot Roberts, but he still joined the rest of the gang on a mission to ambush Pat Garrett in Fort Summer. A gun battle ensued, but Bowdre and most of the Kid's gang members escaped alive. On December 23, however, the gang was holed up in a rock house at Stinking Springs. At dawn, Charlie Bowdre emerged to feed the horses and was riddled with rifle slugs by Garrett's posse, which had surrounded the building in the night. Later that day, Billy the Kid and his partners gave up.

His remains were returned to his wife, and he was laid to rest next to Tom O'Folliard, another member of Billy's gang. When Garrett killed the Kid, he was buried next to Bowdre.

In 1962, a relative named Louis Bowdre was found, and a court tried to have Bowdre's remains removed. But the relative disagreed, saying that Bowdre would prefer to rest next to O'Folliard and Billy the Kid.