277

Rare Photograph of Charles Bowdre

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:800.00 USD Estimated At:3,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Rare Photograph of Charles Bowdre
Locket on pin, photo in spinning frame. 1 1/8” x 7/8” image mounted behind glass. Charles Bowdre (1848 – December 23, 1880) was an American cowboy and outlaw. He was an associate and member of Billy the Kid’s gang. 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, George Coe and Frank Coe. 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 was shot by Buckshot Roberts during the Gunfight of Blazer’s Mills on April 4, 1878, and in turn shot Roberts. It was never confirmed as to whether Bowdre’s shot eventually killed Roberts, or a shot fired by George Coe killed him. Bowdre would be charged with killing Buckshot Roberts during the Blazer’s Mills Gunfight, and was present in the July 15 through July 19, 1878 Battle of Lincoln. By December 1880, Charlie Bowdre was ready to quit riding with Billy the Kid and surrender for the murder of Buckshot Roberts, but joined the rest of the gang on a mission to ambush Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner. 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 interred next to Tom O'Folliard, another member of Billy's gang. Provenance: Manuela (wife of Charlie) to Chino Silva to Slim Cantrell of Fort Sumner