When he was three years old, he and his parents moved to DeSoto County, Mississippi, where they had six more children (Eppie in 1854, Sallie in 1855, Volney and Benjamin in 1857, William in 1863 and Lucy Lee in 1863).

He also joined Scurlock on several posses during this period, pursuing cattle thieves and rustlers, on several occasions taking part in the lynching of those captured.

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 Sumner.

At dawn, Bowdre emerged to feed the horses and was riddled with rifle slugs by Garrett's posse, which had surrounded the building in the night.

After being riddled with bullets he fell back into the doorway where, at the urging of Billy the Kid to "take a few of them with you when you die", Bowdre made a valiant exit.

In the last seconds of his life he stumbled and fell towards Garrett repeating the phrase, "I wish...I wish..." [3] His remains were returned to his wife, and he was interred in the Fort Sumner graveyard next to Tom O'Folliard, another member of Billy's gang.

[8] The circumstances of his death were the basis of a scene in Young Guns II, however, in the movie, Doc Scurlock played by Kiefer Sutherland, is the one who meets his fate outside the hut, and not Bowdre.