Bobrowski organized an illegal print shop in Kiev Pechersk Lavra and oversaw the publication of the society's two newspapers Odrodzenie (Rebirth) and Wielkorus (Great-Ruthenian).

In 1862 the Central National Committee (Komitet Centralny Narodowy, KCN) was formed in Warsaw, whose purpose was to prepare for an upcoming insurrection against Russia.

He also most likely traveled to Moscow, where he met with representatives of the secret Russian organization Zemlia i Volia, which had similar aims with regard to ending serfdom and also opposed the Tsar.

In October 1862 the KCN had issued a statement that an insurrection was necessary in the face of a coming forced conscription into the Tsarist army, and Bobrowski with his vote was supporting the official line.

[7] After a lack of success on the battlefield, and personal clashes with one of the Uprising's generals, Marian Langiewicz, Mierosławski resigned his dictatorship and left Poland for Paris.

However, on 10 March 1863 Langiewicz, influenced and misinformed by the White faction, in particular by Count Adam Grabowski, self-proclaimed as the Uprising's new dictator and took over a portion of the Committee's funds, which he used for arms purchases.

Since Langiewicz was essentially a nominee of the "White" faction, the Red-dominated Committee insisted that as dictator he appoint advisers from its ranks and attempted to circumscribe his power to solely military matters.

Despite a successful military operation at Chroberz (notable for the charge by the Zouves of Death under the command of French-born officer François Rochebrune), after the Battle of Grochowiska Langiewicz came to believe that the cause was lost; and in late March 1863, a few weeks after having been made dictator, he crossed into Austria, where he was interned.

Julian Łukaszewski, the Committee's representative in the Prussian partition, writing shortly after, called the duel an incident of "cold-blooded" and "barbaric" murder.