Lowry was described by George Alfred Townsend, a correspondent for the New York Herald in the late 19th century, as "[o]ne of those remarkable executive spirits that arises now and then in a raw community without advantages other than those given by nature.

[3] The Confederate government used conscription to force many locals to work on the construction of various forts around the Cape Fear River area for very little pay.

Other residents resorted to "lying out" (hiding in the region's swamps) to avoid being rounded up by the Confederate Home Guard and forced to work for low wages.

As the Civil War approached its end, the Lowry Gang aligned themselves with various Union soldiers that had escaped from Confederate prison camps and conducted guerrilla warfare against the Confederacy.

[5] Although Lowry's band was composed mostly of Native Americans, among his chief lieutenants were the black man George Applewhite and the white youth Zachariah McLaughlin.

Republican governor William Woods Holden outlawed Lowry and his men in 1869, and offered a $12,000 reward for their capture: dead or alive.

The governor at the time, Jonathon Worth, placed a $300 dead or alive bounty on his head, but the gang would go on to evade captivity for another 3 years despite many efforts made by the militia to apprehend him.

[5] A few notable events include fending off a search posse while using a boat for cover and eluding troops from United States military that were sent down to North Carolina specifically to capture him.

[8] In 1871 Francis Marion Wishart became colonel of the Police Guard manhunt and had the wives of the Lowry band held hostage in prison.

[7] Lowry's band opposed the postwar conservative Democratic power structure, which worked to reassert its political dominance and white supremacy.

Reverend Patrick Lowry, as a delegate to the Republican state convention in 1872, announced that his brother (Henry Berry) was in fact dead.