l:t::r^ft.t f 11

Cj EX "I I B R I S t Jifea-g^

BRUCE COTTEN

COLLECTION

NORTH CAROLINIANA

' " ' " I ' . i ? ''i f ' '' ", ';: "ff I I ' ''•!' ir v >iiiiirw 'i | WH ' | i " ii!| w i''i i ii i i ii i' b

OKBlRBEftsl

Note: This book not to be copied
by instant copier. Photo-
graphs have been copied and
the North Carolina Collect-
ion has negatives for re-
production purposes.

III pn'scnfiiiirtlils Series of iiitonsoly interostiiis? SEA ROMANCES to the Readinj? Coi
iiiiinilv, file riihlislioi- luis the satisfaction of liiiouiii? that they are

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LIST OF BOOKS COMPRISING THE

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A Sail iu Si:;iu-Thc Criuisuii Oranarht J— Kousrh ^Veather— The Young^ Pilot Appea.
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THE

SWAMP OUTLAWS:

OR,

THE NORTH CAROLINA BANDITS.

Being a Complete History of

THE MODERN ROB ROYS AND ROBIN HOODS.

«♦■ 4» «»■

NEW-YORK :
ROBERT M. DE WITT. PUBLISHER.

NO. S3 ROSE STREET,
{Between Duane and Frankfort Ureets)

INTRODUCTION.

-^* -♦•^ •»'<^—

The liomelj'' old ndage tli:it there is noUiin^- " new tinder the sun " is coiiPtantly
vcrifu'fl bj- actual facts occm iiif;- evciy day. The accouiils handed down by tradition
of" tiie bold arclMM" Kobin Hood" kee[)hig whole counties on the alert, and disputing
the li^-lii to kill fat bucks in tlie i\>yal torest with the boldest barons, have scenied al-
most too daring forbelief, yetliere we have— in this cnligiitened period of the world's
history — a whole State of the most powerful and most enliglilened nation of" tlie
earth successfully defied by a band ol less than a dozen Outlaws. Individual
hunters essay to track and capture Ihoni, and their bones bleach in t!ie forest paths
for their temerit}', troops — regtUar and irregular — alteuipt tlieir subjugation, and are
ingloriously repelled b}'^ these dauntles, law-defying Bandits, '

Not only are thej' secure in their swauipj-^ retreats. They boldly make raids into
the neighboring cotuitry, and release prisoners from the constituted authoi-itios.
They fearlessly enter towns and deliberately carry off the municipal archives and
county treasiu'es — removing by main force immense Herring safes, whose strength
bafllcd violence and whose ingeniouslj'^-coustrucled locks no skill could opoji.

The most fertile brain never conjuied up such deeds of courage, ciuolty and skill-
ful military strat;\gem as bavc marked tiie career of these undaunted men, in whose'
veins the blood of tiie Indian antl Negro is sti-angely connningled. indeed, it seems
jis if the white Frankenstein by his crimes lias raised a fearful monster that will not
tlown at the bidding ot his affrighted master.

Strange, unlikely and almost incredible as tbc deeJs may appear ■which crimson
the sluggish swamp streams of the Old North State, and which are graphically
narrated in the following pages,tbey may be relied on as perfeclly antlieutic. They
are collected from the cohunns of the ^ <w York Herald. It seems almost superllu-
ous, at this late daj', to say anything in praise of the wonderful resources and world-
reacliing enterprises of this great journal. At a time when the proprietor of the
Herald is supporting a corps of brave men in the dense tropical forests ot Africa,
seeking to reach and save Livingstone (a task, by tbe way, that bis own government
has slirank from); when his coriespondeuts are interviewing Bismarck and compar-
ing notes with Gladstone — be finds time and means to send an intelligent corres-
pondent I'igbt into tlie heart of tbe country where the red bowie-knife and death-
dealing rifles of tbe Swamp Outlaws are carrying dismay and terror into the heart.*
of men, women and children. Indeed, there ai)pears to bo nothing too small foi its
microscopic or too large foi- its telescopic vision. A Baxter street light or a Sedan
conflict alike find in the ubiqitous columns of the New York Herald " a local habi-
tation and a name."

(vii.)

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Among- the L.owerys, the Outlaw Ter

rors of North Carolina— Tiisonrora.
!Seii(\y,al and Caticasian Blood JliiijJ-
liii;;' ill Tlicir Veins — Histni\- of tli(!ir
Caiiipaig'n — A Bloody Nine Years'
Kc;l:oixI— Sixleeu Murders, — Three
Ilinidred Robberies, and Not a Man
Lo-t to riie Band— Ho|)oles,s Condi-
tion ot All'iiis- The Old Nortii State
Disniaj'e 1 and Battled — Grajilde Pen
Pietnre of Henry Berry Lowery.
tiie Ontlaw Ciiief— Portrails ot
'• B()>^"" Stroni;-, Steve Lower}',
Anilrew Stronij and Tom Lowery.

Shoe IIkel, N. C, Feb. 27, 1872.
The bandit of North Carolina, Henry
Berry Lowery, standing in perfect dis-
dain of the autlioritics of the State, as
well as of the federal troops, it was
d(?einod necessary to send a Herald
correspondent to study the situation.

TO THE SEAT OF WAR.

1 left Washington City Thursday night
and reported myself next day at noon
in the oHice of Governor Walker of Vir-
ginia.

The handsomest man in the South was

seated at tlu; table, signing bills, in the

old Confederate Supreme Court room.

His beautiful, grayish black mustache,

healthy gray hair, clear skin and smiling

exfu-ession, every inch a loi-d lieutenant

in the oMest of our shires, grew soberer

as he said : —

.^ ^, " Lowery ? Why a captain of the Vir-

., ginia militia applied to me yesterday to

^ pbtain permission for himself and forty

^ men to hunt that fellow in the swamps

> of North Carolina. Lowery must be a

^ good deal of a character."

As I looked over the files of the Rich-
mond newspapers, and their intimate
exchanges of the tobacco, rice and tar
region, I found the question of the day
to be— Lowery. He was at once the
Nat Turner, the Osceola, and the Rob
Roy MacGregor of the South. With
iriingled ardor and anxiety, desire and
trepidation, I pushed on by the Weldon
road to Wilniingt« ii, the largest town of
the State, where Lowery had once been
confined in prison. There was there
but a single question — Lowery. The
Wilmington papers called the Robeson
county people cowards for not cleaning
him out. The Robeson county paper
hurled back the insinuation, but hurled
nothing else at Lowery. The State
government got its share of the blame,
and the State Adjutant General replied
in a card that the militia and volunteers
had no pluck on the occasion when he
had tried them. Five men had mas-
tered a Communwealth.

THE SCARE ON TIJE ROAD.

An instance of the deep sense of ap-
prehension created by these Itandits in
all southeastern Carolina is affirded by
a dream which Colonel W. H. Barnard,
editor of the Wilmington Star, related
to me. The Colonel's paper is eighty
miles from the scene of outlawry :

" I dreamed the other night/' said he,
"that I was riding up the Rutherford
Railroad, and came to Moss Neck sta-
tion, where the outlaws frequently ap-

[ix.]

THE SWAMP OUTLAVv'S.

pear. I thought a yellow fellow, Indian-
look incr, came to the car door and said,
* Everybody can pass but Barnard! I
want him !' This was Henry Berry
Lowery. Then I dreamed they to(»k me
into some kind of torture place, and
poked guns at me and tantalized me."

The newspapers were, however,
making political c;ipital out of the Low-
ery gang, instead of calling upon an
honorable and united State sentiment to
suppress the scandal. The democratic
papers cried, " Black Ku Klux !" and the
republican papers retorted by asking
where was the valor of the wnite Ku
Kliix, who could flog a thousand peace-
ful men, but dared not meet five outlaws
ill arms.

"The democrats," said one Robeson
county man, in my room, "as soon as
they upset the republicans in Robeson
county startf'd to annihilateScufflotown
and its vote by terror. They have been
beaten in it. That chap Lowery has
made them a laughing stock. He ought
to be killed, but they skulk out of his
reach."

CRIME WITHOUT A COMPASS.

Mayor Martin, of Wilmington, Presi-
dent of the Rutherford Railway, which
passes through Scuffle-town and the land
of the outlaws, relates an incident, piti-
ful at least to Northern ears, of the
ignorance of these robbers, and the hope-
less fight they are making within the
limits of all that is available to them.
Adjutant General Gorham, who directed
the late ignominious campaign against
the Lowery band — where, by current re-
ports, the main victories gained were
over the mulatto women, the soldiery
driving the husbands forth to insult and
debauch their wives — said that Henry
Berry Lowery, when asked to withdraw
from the State, replied : —

" Rol)( son comity is tlie only iaiiH I
know. 1 can iiardiy read, and do m-i
know where to go if i leave these woods
and swamps, where 1 was raised. If 1
can get safe conduct and pardon I will
go anywhere. I will join the United
States Army and fight the Indians. But
these people will not let me leave alive,
and I do not mean to enter any jail
again. I will never give up my gun."

Mayor Martin's solution for the diffi-
culty is for the United States to declare
martial law over the whole Congression-
al district in which Robeson county
stawds, and make a systematic search
with regular troops for these outlaws.
He says that when they first took to
their excursions they were camparitively
sober, but of late have taken to drinking,
and about four weeks ago they all, ex-
cept their leader, got drunk at Ed.
Smith's store, Moss Neck, and lay there
all night! "Whiskey," said Mayor
Martin, " will reduce them in time; but
they are very careful whose liquor they
drink in these days. Henry Berrr
Lowery left his flask hanging an a fence
a few weeks ago, and when he returnetl
to get it he made everybody at the sta-
tion drink with him."

TO LUMBERTON.

Early in the morning, Monday, Feb-
ruary 26, I took the train for Lumber-
ton, and from the forward car to the tail
the freight was Lowery. In the second
class carriage, escorted by two sheriffs,
MacMillan and Brown, of Robeson
county, was Pop Oxendine — the previ-
ous said to be his literal name — brother
of Henderson Oxendine, the only one
of the outlaws who was ever brought to
trial and han"ed. He was chained to a
regular army soldier, who had recently
murdered a negro at Scuffletown, and he
was a remarkable looking mulatto, with
a yellowish olive .skin, good features, and

THE SWAxMP OUTLAWS.

hfindsnme, fippcnling, uiiroliablc, unin- IThe conductors and enginoers say that

tpi-pretible pair of black oycs. So j^ood
looking a mulatto man, with such a
coiujilcxion, 1 had not seen. Like the
rest, he had the Tuscarora Indian blood
in liini, with the duplicity of the mixed
races \vhere the while blood predomi-
nates, lie was ironed fast to the seat
and looked at me with a look inquisitive,
pitiful, evasive and inijcnunus by turns.
If I should describe the man by the
words nearest my idea I should cull him
n negro-Indian gypsy.

The passengers were apprehensive
nnd inquisitive together, wanting to
know all about Lowery and dreadijig to
encounter him. The fullest, and often
very intelligent, explanations were mad(>
to me, and every facility was tciidered
to assist me to form accurate C(jnclusions
as to the characters in the band.

Cobuiel S. L. Fiemont, General
Superintendent of the Rutherford Rail-
way, will permit no passenger carrying
arms for the purpose of shooting
Liiwery to ride on his trains, as he fears
that such permission will endanger the
Rafety of the railway. Lowery could
loss a train olT almost any day, but he
seems to hold a supeistitious respect for
the United States mails.

A few months ago a man by the
name of Marsden announced that he
meant to travel up and down the road
as a detect've and kill Lowery on sight.
To put him to the test Lowery and all
the band appeared with cocl cd shot-
puns at Moss Neck station, and stood
at a respertable, yet fui tive, "present
arms," while the braggart, fur Buch he
was, crawled under the car seat.
I>nvery offered $100 reward to anybody
who would tell him whether Harden or
Marsden was on the train, as he meant

then; is perfect safety on the trains,
although none know when t-he outlaw
leader may tiike otRnce against the com-
pany or its ofiieers.

LUMBEFwTON IN COURT WEEK.

The Ruthetford Railway traverses the
counties of the southern tier of North
Carolina, passing lew towns of the
magnitude, I'nt built generally through
till' pilch pile woods, whoso white bob a,
sti ipped u f jw fiH't from the ground and
notched to provoke the flow of the sap
and to catch it, resemble the intermin-
able tonjbstones of a woodland burial
ground. Swamps intersect the woods,
and the resinous-lookin<i waters of
manv creeks and canals alternate with
deserted rice fields, the skeletons of old
turpentine distilleries, the stubble of
ragged cotton plantations, some oc-
casional weatiier-blackcned shanties, and
now and then a sawmill or a pile of
newly hewn timber.

Flat, humid, almost uninhabited, is
the traveller's (irst impression of the
country. But there is a speck of light
and lift; at Abbottsville, the home of ex-
Uuited States Senator Abbott, who has
built up the '" Capo Fear Building Com-
pany," to supply ready made houses to
the people of his adopted State, and
whose private residence, of yellow
frame, is next to the large mill and
branch railway of the enterprise.

Alter five hours ride we came to the
weather-blackened, unpainted town of
Lumberton, on the flowing Lumber
River, a branch of the Pedee.

Lmnberton is the seat of Robesf)n
county, the stamping ground of
Lowery's band. With one exception —
and that disputable as the act of tho

to follow the fellow up the road but he i band — no murder has been committej
would not cross the platform himself, j by tho Lowerys beyond the lines of

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

t,hi3 county. It contains, by the census
of 1870, 3,042 men above the age of
twenty-one.

By the census of 1850, the last pre-
Ceeding census avaikblo at tliis point of
view, it contained 039 whites iinabU; to
read, and had at that time 1,171 free
negroes, or more than oven Iho popu-
lous county in whicii Wilmington
stands, and qnintupli; the U-oo ne/^roes
po]>i)i.ition of the adj.icent comities.

Si-ulTlctown a few miles distant from
Lumbcrton was one of the lai-gest free
noiXn) settlements in the United States
before the war against slavery, and it
was Ijesides, an ahuost imnu'inurial tree
negro settlement.

This being Court week, ihe town of
Lumheiton was full of SL-nffl'.'tou ncrs,
and I saw and talked wiih Sinclair
L'lWi'ry, elder brother of tho outlaws,
and .-dso with "Dick" Oxcndino, who
married the only sister of Henry Berry
Lowcry, and who kijeps a barroom in
the Court, H<H]se village.

Besides, I visited t!ic scene of the
lat< st exploits of tin; Loworys, the cap-
ture of the most valuable s:ife in tlie
town, as well as the countv official
snfe, which they contemptuously rejected
o)i 1 he road.

1 ;i!so visited the jail v, here Hender-
son Oxendine's gallows stood, and the
couit room, where a noisy crier made
proel iinatlon from the oj)en wintlow,
and llie garrulous Judge Clarke was
delivi'i'lng a charg(i upon the enormities
of t!iesc banditti, ci-\ i;ig meantime into
his pocket hauilkei'chief.

E. sides, I talked wiih a great number
of ti • leadinix citizens, w ho to a man,
wei- • of Scotch descent, and at noon
nox' 'lay, I'esamiiig the train, I xisited
Sci !"! town and fslept willi cnurleous
ent i i iners at L^hije^jHiCi'l, in the heart
of I ii •• pine forest.

The incidents of these excursions will
appear hereafter.

Let me now address mvself to

describing the outlaws.
DESCRIPTION OF TII5] OUTLAWS.

IIENUY BERRY LOWERY.

Henry Berry Lowery, the leader of
the most formidable band of outlaws,
considering the smallness of its numbers,
that has been known in this country, is
of mixed Tuscari ra, mulatto imd white
blood, twenty-six years of age, five feet
nine in';hes hi<jrh and weiiihiuir about 150
po\inds.

He has straight black haii-, like an
Indiiii : a dark goatee, and a beard grace-
ful in shape, but too thin to look very
black. His face slopes from the cheek
bones to the tip of his goatee, so as to
give liim the Southern American con-
tour of physiognomy ; but it is lighted
with eyes ot' a different color — eyes of a
grayish hazel — at times appearing light
blue, with a drop of brown in them, but
in agitation dilating, darkening, and,
although never quite losing the appear-
ance ot a smile, 3 et inaction it is a smile
of devilish nature.

His for. head is good anil his fico and
expression refined — remarkably so, con-
sidei-ing his mixci] race, want of educa-
tion and long career of lawlessness.

A scar of crescent shape and black

lor li<'s in tl

le sum below Ins le

ey(

said to have been made Uy a:i iron pot
falling Ujiou him when a chiid.

H;s Voice is sweet an 1 piea^-ant, and
in his ni ii.n-r there ii ni>ihing self-
imporiaiit or swairrrerin"-. lie is not
tilkative. listens qniclly, an<l searches
out who ■vif is speaking to liim like a
man iHii, lati; in all boolis save tlu! two
great hoolis of nature, and huuian nature
above all.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

MRS. HENRY LOWERY

The color of the skin is of a whitish
yellow sort, with an admixture of cop-
por — sucii .1 skin as, for the nature of its
components, is in color indescribable,
there being no negro blood in it except
th:it of a f'lr remote generation of mu-
latto, and the Indian still apparent.

It is enough to say of this skin that it
seems to suffer little change by heat or
cold, exposure or sicknes-;, good honse-
ing or wild weather.

The very relatives of white men killed
by Henry Berry Lowpry admitted to me
that " Tie is one of the handsomest
mulattoes you ever saw."

LOTERY rnYSICALLT.

To match this face the outlaw'^ body
is of mixed strength and beautv.

It is well knit, wiry, straight in the
shoulders and limbs, without a physie.il
fliiw in it, and as one said to me who had
known him well since childhood, ** Ho
is like a trap ball, elastic all over."

He has feet which would be notice-
able anywh.re, pointed and with arch-
ing instep, so that he can wear a very
shapely boot, and his extremities, liko
his features indicate nothing of tho
negro. A good chest, long bones, supple-
ness, proportion, make his walk and
form pleasing to see.

THE SWAMP OUILAWS.

parage

lie is negligent about his dress, but
his clothes become him and never dis-
hiin.

People have told me that he wore fine
clothes; but, when questioned to the
point of re-examination, admitted that
he had nothing on but a woolen blouse
and trousers and a black wide-brimmed,
stiff woolen hat

HIS ARMS.

To see this trim youth ns he appears
whenever seen on the highroads or the
piney forest bypath, or as often at the
raiUvav stations of Moss Necl<, Eureka,
Bale's Store, or Red Banks, is to sec
•youn'» Mars bearing about an arsenal.

His equipment n)ight appear prepos-
terous if we do not consider, the pecu-
liar circumstances of iiis warfare — out-
lawed by the state of North Carolina,
without a reliable base of supplies, and
compelled to carry arms and charges in
them enough to encounter a large body
of men or stand a long campaign.

A belt around his waist accom-
modates five six-barrelled revolvers —
long shooters.

Fiom this belt a shoulder strap passes
up and supports behind, slinging fashion,
a Spencer rifle, wliich carries eight car-
tridges, and it is now generally alleged
that he has replaced this with a Henry
rifle, carrying double the former num-
ber of cartridges, while, successively,
man after man of the band, by some
mysterious agency, becomes possessed
of a Spencer rifle. In addition to these
forty or forty-eight charges Lowery
carries a long-bla'ied knife and a large
flask of whiskey— the latter because he
fears to bo poisoned by promiscuous
neighborhood drinking.

He can run like a deer, swim, stand

sleep by little snatches which, in a few
days, would tire out white or negro.

Although a tippler, he was never
known to be drunk — a fact not to be
justly asserted to his confederates.

Brought suddenly at bay he is
observed to wear that light, fiendish, en.
joying smile, which shows a nature at
Its depths savage, predatory and fond of
blood. The war he has waged for the

a region of

past nine years, within
twelve or fifteen miles square, against
county, State, Confederate and United
States iiulhorities, alternately or unitedly
is justification for the terror apparent in
the faces of all the white people within
those limits.

Lowery's band gives more concern
to the Carolinas than did Carleton's
Legion ninety years ago.

LOWERY AS A BRIGAND LEADER.

"What is the meaning of this?" said
I to " Parson" Sinclair — the fijihtin:;
parson of Lumberton — "How can this

fellow, with a handful of boys and illi-
lerate men, put to flight a society only
recently used to warfare and full of ac-
complished soldiers ? Explain it."

"Lowery," answered Sinclair, "is
really one o( those remarkable execu-
tive spirits that arises now and then in
a raw community, without advantages
other than nature gave liim. He has
passions, but no weaknesses, and his
eye is on every point at once. He has
impressed that whole negro society with
Ills power and influence. They fear
;lnd admire him. He asserts his super-
iority over all these whites just as well.
No man who stands face to face with
him can resist his quiet will, and assur-
ance and his searching eye. Without
fear, without hope, defying society, he
weeks of exposure in the swamps and I is the only man we have any knowledge
crest, walk day and night, and take j of down here who can play his part

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Upon my word. I believe if he had I
lived a^cs ago he would have been a
Williatu tlie Conqueror. He reniinda
me of nobody but R )b Roy."

HIS BLOUD AND INCLIN.VTIONS.

The thi-ec natures of white, Indian
and nt'gro arc, however, seen at iiitiM--
vals to come f«»rward in tliis outlaw's
natui- .

The nr'TO trace is in his love of rude
music.

He is a banjo player, and when the
periodical hunt fov him is done he re-
pairs to some one of ihc huts in SctifHo-
town and plays to the dancing of lh(i
mulatto yirls and his companions by
the hour, his belt of arms ur.slung and
thrown at liis foot, the peaceable part of
the au.VuMioe taiciui; part with mixed
wonder dc'ig'il and a[>i r. hension. Sev-
eral times tiiis baiijt> has nearly betrayed
him to his pursuers.

Sherilf MacMiilan described himself
nnd posse once lying oat all night in the
swamp and limb;^r around Lowery's
cabin to wait fur him to come forth at
daylight.

" And," said he, " that banjo was just
♦■verlasliiigl V thrumming, and we could
hear the laughter and Juba-beating
nearly the whole night long."

THE MULATIO SARDANaPALUS.

The licentiousness of Lowery is stifli-
cient t > 1)0 uoliceable, but while it never
engages him to the exclusion of vigi-
lance and activity, it also shows what
may be traced in some degree to his
Indian nature — the using of women as
an auxiliary to war and plunder.

He has debauched a number of his
prisoners with the mulatto girls of
Scuffle town, and the charms of these yel-
low-tinted syrens broke up the morale
of the late campaign in force against

the outlaws, while, as some allege, the
discovery of the Detective Landers
plan to capture Lowery was made by a
girl in Lowery's interest with whom
Landers spent his time.

Lowery has said, and laughed over it,
that he devised at a critical point in a
truce between the contending parties
that a bevy of the prettiest and frailest
beauties in Scuffletown shonM ct)me up
and be introduced to one of the officers
hi'di m command.

After that the Marc Antony in ques.
tion laid down his sword, and gave
practical evidence that the hostility of
races is not so great as the slavery
statesmen alleged.

The indifference of the Indian to the
loan of his squaws finds some parallel
in Lowery's tactics.

He himself is the Don Juan of
Scuffletown ; but he sleeps on his arms*
and will go into the swamps for weeks
without repining. Women have been
employed to give him up; but they
either repent or he discovers their pur-
pose by intuitive sagacity.

THE OUTLAWS WIFE.

The white society around him gave
Henry Berry Lowery a lesson in self-
schooling and sacrifice so far as women
were concerned.

After the murders of Barnes nnd
ILuris — offences which, some think,
ou^ht to have been included in the
proclamation of oblivion for offences
committed by both sides betoie the
close of the war — Lowery stood up by
the side of Rhodv Slronir, the most
Ijcautiful mulatto of Scuflljtown, to bo
married.

Aware of the encasement and the oo-
casion, the Sheriffs possic, w ith cruel de-
liberation, surrounded the house till the
ceremony was over, and then rushsd in

jr.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

nnil t )ok tlio outlawed husband from
the side of liis wife.

[J :• was it'iaovcd to Liimberton jail,
and tlu'ii scut still fLii-ther away to
Culiuiibus comity jail; but lie broke
throuiih ih;! hai-.s, csca[n'd to the woods
with the irons on his wrists, and made
his way to his bride. Th.'V have three
(riiildren, tlie fruit of their stolen and
rudely iuterrupted interviews.

A GLIMPSE AT MADAM ^. LOWERY.

As I rode down on the train from
Shoe Heel to Liiinborton, on the 28lh
of F> liruary, the eondiietoi-, Coroiiel
Morrison, eaiiio to me and saicl : — " if
you want to -co Henry Berry Lowery's
wife you can find hei- in the forward
second-ela-5S car."

She had tilcen the train at Red Banks
for liloss Neck — points between which
the whole baud of outlaws frequently
ride on the freiiiht trains — and at the
latter nolable station I saw her descend
with her baby and walk off down the
t'(»ad ia the woods and stop there among
the tall [Vitch pines, as if waiting for
somebody. The baby — the last heir of
outlawry — began to cry as she left the
train, and she said, mother-lashi -n :
" No, no, no, I wouldn't cry, when 1 had
bi. en so good all day !"

This womnn is the sister of two of the
five remaining outlaws and wife of the
tiiird.

The wiiites call her satirically, " the
queen of Scufflctown ;" but she ap-
peared to be a meek, pretty-eyed rather
shrinking giil, of a very light color^
poorly dressed.

She wore many brass rings, with
cheap rep stones in them, on her small
hands, and a dark green plaid dress of
nauslin delaine, which just revealed her
new black morocco " store " sh,>es. A
yellowish muslin or calico hood, with a

long cape, covered her head, and there
was nothing beside that I I'emember ex-
cept a shawl of bright coloi-s, much
\\ orn.

It was sad enoiigh and j)rosaic ein)u<^h
to see this small w.nian with hci- babv
in her arms, cairying it along, whde the
hnsl)and and father, covered with tie
blood of fifteen murders, roamed the
woods and swamps like a Seminole.

Rliody Lowery is said not to be a
constant wif>, but to follow the current
example of SLuflletown. Other persons,
the negroes notably, deny this.

A more persevering newspaper cor*
respondent might settle the issue.

LOWERY AS A TERROR IZER.

Mr. Hayes, a republican, of Shoo
Herl, whose knowledge of iho Scuffle-
town seitlement is very g od and whose
practical Northern mind is not likely to
be deceived, told me that Lowery,
among Irs numerous warnings served
upon people, stopped one white man on
the load and said, •' Yv;u are taking ad
vantage of my circumstances and ab.
seuce to be familiar with my family.
Now, you better pack up and get out of
this county.''

The man lost no time in doing as re-
quested ; for Henry Berry Lowery
generally -.varns before ho kills. In ihe
niJitter of honesty in the observance of a
promise or a treaty the people most
robbed and outraged by this bandit ac-
knowledge his Indian scrupulousness.
" Mr. MacNair," he said to one of his
white neighbors, -.v-hom he iiad robbed
twenty times, "i want you to cear up
and go to Lu'.nberton, where they have
put my wife in jad for no crime but be-
cause she is my v\if((; that ain't her
fault, and they can't make it so. Yon
people won't let me woik to get mv
living, and I have got to take it from

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

you ; liiit, God knows, she'd like to see
rnc niiiicc iny own bread. You go to
Liiinljcrton and tell the Sheriff and
Cv<iiiity Coinrnissionors that if they
diint lei her out of tliut j .il I'll retaliate
on the white women of Hurnt Swamp
Township. Some of them shall come to
the swamp with me if she is kept in the
jail, because they cau't get me."

LOWERT AS A TRUCE MAKER.

Lowery then named a point on the
road wlu!!-G he would meet JtlaeNair,
and he nut him instead three miles
nearer to Liimberton. Tlie feeling ot
terror in 1 lie. county may be understood
when, without more delay, Rhody
Lowery was set free.

While in the region several persons
urged me to go out and talk to Lowery
SlierifT ^racT^rillan and Mr. llrown, the
son-In-law of the murdered Shei id Kiiifr
-i— strange as it may appear for county
ofTiccrs, and T mention it to show the
suptirstitiou inspired by this brigand —
offered to ol)t:iia an interview for me
with the whole gang by sending out
some member of the Lowerv familv to
negotiate. ^Fy faith was not equal to
theirs, and I declined.

"Do you suppose that fellow would
give mo n, talk V I said to Calvin Black
a merchant of Shoo Heel.

'• Yes, if ho could bo made to under-
stand lluit your intentions were pacific.
The large reward now out fop him,
amoiinting, for himself and party, to
about forty-five thousand dollars, taken
dead or alive, makes him apprehensive of
assiX-s^iinlioti. I*utif ho were to promise
not to injure you, you could go any-
where to see him with perfect i(n-
punity." This was general testimony.

Rev. Mr. MacDiermid, editor of the
Robesonian, the county organ, who does
his duty by niiintimidated denunciation
of this outlaw, said : — " Henry Berry

Lowery has sent mc word that I had
better be cautious now I w rite about
him, but I believe that I could go to see
him to-day, for he appreciates his con-
sequence in the role he has assunu d."' 1
noticed, however, that nob idy did go to
sec him, and I followed that hi^h and
general example.

PRICE OF LOWERYS HEAD.

Since Jefferson Davis' fligijt and the
reward put upon his head there has been
no American criminal — pi-obably none
previously in all the history of the coun-
try for (iffences at common law — who
has been dignified witli the amount of
money offered for Lowery's overtaking.

If it should appear in the Nortli this
slietrh is too strong, I point to this re-
ward and to the fict that this outlaw has
already made a pergonal and bloody
campaiirn against societv lonirer than the
whole revolutionary war.

Osceola, or» Powel (who was an im-
mediate mixture of Indian and negro
blood, ; n 1 who fought over a larger
region), gave out in a much shorter space
of resistance.

HIS CHIVALRY.

Two things arc to bo chronicled in
this man's favor, and 1 make them on
the universal testimony of everybody
in this regioi!.

ITc has never committed arson or
rape or offered to insult females. "While
entering private houses nearly every day
his worst act is to drive the family into
some one apartment and bar them there
while the house is cooly and leisurely
ransacked.

A few weeks ago an aged lady, ^Irs.
MacNeil and her daughter, were shot
with duck shot by somebody taking the
name of Lowery's band, doubtless the
party accused ; but the wounding of the
woman was not foreseen by the brigands,

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

and tliov fired at old MacNcil, whose i
fiiinilv of sons and son-in-law had become
parlkuLiiIy off usivc to them.

MacN'il told nic the circumstances
as lollows: — IIo h:id heen repeatedly
robbed, his son-in-law Taylor killed, his
sons ordered to leave the country, and
now aliiiost entirely nlone, he was com-
pelled to do a good deal of his own
watching iuul to w:iit upon himself.

Staiidiiiir by his smokehouse one
mooiili dil ni:'ht lu; saw two men enter the
yard ;ind one of them walked straight
up to the srnolu horse door and began to
pry it open. Partly concealed in the
shadow of the fnce, MacNcil cried —
"Who is Ihatl"
No ans'ver.

Ho rope itel tlie interrogation and the
reply was —

*' What in the hell is that your busi-
ness 1'

The Scotch blood of the old man
mour.ti d to his f ic(% notwithstanding his
lonjr ;mi.1 n(»: whollv undeserved mis-
fortunes, and he went into his dwelling
fur his gi;ii. ITis wife and his daughter
besought hini not to venture out, and,
on his icfi.isal, followed him to the door.
He called again : —

** Who's that at mv smokehouse?'
The answer was : —
"Lov.ery's band, God damn you."
And in a nilnutc a charge of buckshot
pouri d in at the door, putting, as Mac-
Neil sai<l, sixteen buckshot in a place no
bigger than his hat from the spot where
he was expected to have been, and strik-
infT his Mile in the thiMi, riddling her
dress, and hitting his daughter in the
shoulder and breast, so that the shot
catnc out of her back. Both women
will iccover, allhough sorely wounded.
The cause of this long persecution of
MacNcil I will give in another letter.

RU^rORS AND INCIDENTS.
Colonel Wisehart, an old Confederate

officer and a dauntless man, living near
Moss Ni'ck, has shot at Lowery several
times, but always missed him, and jnc«;
surroimded with a posse the outlaw's
cabin, but he got off so mysteriously
that they allege to this day that he had
an undergnnind passage.

Lowery is said to whip his w ife some-
times and to have threatened also to
shoot her, on the occasions of her re-
proving his long absences. St)me time
ajro she came, accordin"if to rnnior, to a
store at Luinberton and remarked : —

'• Berry put his gun in my fiec to-day
and said ho meant to kill me, and I told
him to fire it off — not to stop for me."

The negroes charge that these stories
are without foundation, and Deputy
Sheriff Brown admitted to me : —

" Lowery will never leave this country
alive."

"Why?"

" Because he loves his wife and will
not leave her whereabouts."

1 give some further rumors for what
they arc worth : —

Henry B. Lowery is not a good shot
except at close quarters — so says B(»ss
Strong. The Boss remarked at Moss
Neck one day : —

" Henry is nothing much with that
Spencer rifle, nor his shotgun, neither;
but Steve Lowery can shoot liie tail off
a coon."

Some of the ScufHetoAvn negroes say
differently, and give marvellous in-
stmees of the accuracy of eye and nerve
of both Henry Berrv and the in.-joritv
of the gang. He cei tainly gei eially
kills when he does shoot. H' re is an
instance of his coolness. A Mr. McRae
who lives on the limits uf lloheson
county removed from the imniediato
country of the bandits, got <>!! with
other passengers at Moss Neck a favf
weeks ago, and said aloud funiliary —

" Where docs this rascal, Lowery,

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

keep himself? I'd like to see the villaiiu''

A wliiiiah nejrro, standing near by,
unarmed, s:iid, coolly —

" Well, sir, if you'll step this way I'll
show liini to you."

Tiiis was 'J'om Lowery. The a.^toiiish-
ed pasenger was put in a moment in ihc
presence of a sombre- looking mu-
latto fellow wiih straight hair, whoso
body was giit all round with pistols,
and who cirricd two jjuns besides.

" This is Henry Bjrrv Lower v," said
the other outlaw.

*' Yt;s," said H(Miry, " and wo always
ask our fiieiiJs to take a drink with us."

The. passenger saw the significant,
bland look on both the half-breed fices,
and ho said, with all available assur-
ance : —

" I'll take the drink if you'll let ine
pay for it."

" Oil, yes, we always expect our
friends to treat us."

PICTURE OF '• SWARTHY INDIAN

STEVE."

The brigand of the Lowery gan<jr, m
appearance, is Steve, whose carri.ige is
that of a New York rough, and whose
thick, black, straight hair, thin, black
moustache, goatte and very loweiing
countenance, set with blackish liaz d
eyes, give him the character his deeds
bear out of a robber and murderer of
the Murrel stamp.

He is the most perfect Indian of the
party, superadded to the vagabond.
He is five feet nine inches hi<fh, thick set.
round shouldered, heavy and of power-
ful strength, with long arms, a heavy
moufcii, and that brusque, aggressive,
impudent manner, which befits the high-
wayman stopping his man.

Sieve Lowery required no great
provocation to take to the swamps and
prowl around the country by day and
night.

He is mentioned third on the list in
the Governor's proclamation, fi^'uring
there at $500, or half the price of Henry
Berry Lowry's head; is the oM',-st of the
gang, said to be thirty-one. and his im-
perious temper, ijis.iliable love of rob-
Ijery and insubordination to h s younger
brother, the leader, o:iee involved him
in a quarrel, where he was shot iu tb«
leg.

Steve has the woi'st cnunton.ince of
.any man in the gang. IIis swarthy,
dirk brown ccjmplexioUj thin visa_:e and
quick speech make him fe.ired by any
unlucky enemy who may fall inti> the
hands of the outlaws.

W'hen Landei's, the detective, was
condemned to death and Tom L )wery
slunk away, unwiHing to see blood,
Steve Lowery raised his gun aiicl filled
the unfortunate prisoner witii ;i eharge
of buckshot. Steve has been Concerned
in nearly every robbery an.J shooting,
perhaps cv^ivy one, committed l)y this
party.

SKETCH OF BOSS STROXQ.

The youngest of the gan:: and the
most t;usted and inseparable companion
of Henry Berry L >wery is his boy
brother-in-law, Boss Sti-onj. a^ed no
more than twenty. The Strongs are
said to have been derived from a white
man of that name, who came from
Western Carolina to Sciifiletown and
took up with one of the Lowery women.
In this generation they are legitimate.
Boss Strong is nearly white ; his dark,
short cut hair has a reddish tingu and is
slightly curling; a thick down appears
on his lip and teinplrs, but otherwise ho
is beardless; he has that dull, blueish
eye frequently seen among the SeufBe-
tonians, and is taciturn. %

In repose his countenance is mild
and pleasing; but the demon is always
near at hand when Henry Berry Lowerjr

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

desires iL to appear, and then the heavy
bhicU oye-brows of the boy, which
nearly meet over the bridge of his nose,
give him a (logged, determined lo<)l<,
which many a man has seen to his cost.
Boss Strong is plastic material in the
hands <if iiis brothei'-in-law, and !ie>'t t<>
that h'ader is c(inimor.!y regarded as
the woi-st of the party.

He is so 'iistinguishcd in all the offers
of lewards. Being the least capable
and (>xpei-ieiice 1 of thi' party, he is thei'e-
forc must d.;ngei-(nis in other hands, and
it is a revoliiig instance of the extremes
of i/oixl and ill to see the fidelity of
Boss Strong- to ITenry Berry Lowery
up to the eonsiDiunaiion of repeated
murders willi t!)c coolest militai-y
obedience.

His hands are dyed deep in the blood
of old and \ ouii .;■. Boss Sli'ong is
about Civi' feet ten, tliiek set, with a full
face, and lie handles his arms willi slciil
and has the eoiii-a<»e of a bull pup.

^^'lle;l Jcjhu Taylor's brains were
blown oiil Itv Henrv Berrv, Boss I'ushed
npon the hank and aimed at young
MacNeil and woinided him witii the
wad (if a eh:ii-ge, of buckshot intended
to s!ay him.

■ The ]U'oj)]e of Tiobeson county and
the mililarv aullioiities have long au;o
given up all prospect of seducing either
of ;!u'.-;e mui'dci-ers to betray each other.

Boss Sti-oi:g has never been considered
asuithin that possil)iity. He, like the
leadiuir outlaw, has tjenerallv killed his
man at close quarters — seldom at more
than from four to ten yards.

ANDREW STRONG DELINEATED.

Andrew Strong, elder brother of Boss,
is very nearly the same age with Herwy
Ber;y Lowery. He is more than six
feet high, tall and slim, and nearly
perfectly white ; his thin beard is of a

reddish tinge, and he has dark, stiaight

hair.

This fellow is the Oily Gammon of the
party, without that higher order of cun-
ning which with Henry Berry Lowery
amounts to prescience and strategy ;
but his eye can wear a look of meek,
repi'oachful injury, and his tongue is sof^
and treacherous.

He was at one time in Court, and
when the indictment of his crimes was
read he looked out of his great, soft eyes
as if ready to weep at snchuijjust impu-
tations. Andrew Strong niairied the
(hiughter of Henry Sampson, auotlicr o^
the Indian nuilattoes, and has two chil-
d:'en.

II(! is a cowardlv cutthroat, and will
st(\al a poeketbook on the high I'oad.

In the way of killing people he is
sinnlarlv Tierfidions, and the liwuex will
drop (Voni his touguii almost into the
wound he iudiets. Loving to see fear
and jiaiu, a profissor of" d( eiit, plau>iljl(',
uiieei-tain, tineasy, deadly, this meanest
of the band \ et has const quenec in it.

TOM ].0'\VERY, THE JAFL D'RD.

Tom Lowei-y has a long, straight
Caucasian nose, a good forehead of more
ihan avei-ajie heie-ht, sIo|)ing but heavv
jaws, vei'y scruliby, black beard about
the chin, coininij out .slunt, stiff and
sparse, and straight, black liair.

He would be called cadaverous if h«
were white, but in his eye there are the
hazel lights (darting and restless, and
readily burning up to a large glow) of
the Indian gypsy. Perhaps the solution
of the white race, which blended origin
ally with the Tuscaroras — a subject on
which ihe learned Judge Leech, of Lum-
berton, has spent much inquiry — might
be solved by the gypsy suggestion.
The Judge mentioned Portuguese (a tru-
ly jtiratical race since the days of Tols
nois), Spanish and several other races to

THE SWAMF OUTLAWS.

'21

',.<

... I •*!:

v':L.y

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

account for the blood wliich others
aitriUutcd in the Luwer^ s to negro in-
fusion. Might it h;ivc been " Roin-
nuiny ?" 'J'iic ]*)nglibh gypsy has been
in North Ann licu a hundred years,

Tom Lowery is a thieving sneak,
enpable of murder, but sickened by
blood, and the o'uest member of the
Lowrry gang.

lie is thiity-live years of age, has a
broad-siiouldered, active, strong body,
and is five feet nine inches high.

The eye of this man is a study — blue-
ish gray, furtive, and dancing around,
hut when the observei's eye drops away
he sends a heathenish shaft of light
atraight out from the thieving nature of
the fellow, which seems to seize all the
situatidii.

Ho is equally alert in slipping jail and
evading capture, and some time ago he
got off from the military, peppered all
over the back with shot and with his
shirt full of blood.

THE RETIRED PSEUDO OR DISABLED
BANDITS.

The above five men constitute, at
present, I he bandits and outlaws ot
North Carolina. Together they make
an active and formidable, and also a
wicked crowd ; and, officered by a man
of remarkable ability and powers, they
present an anomalous picture in the
heart of modern society.

I append sketches of the other and
former members of the band, and now
in the foreground : —

GEORGE APPLEWHITE

George Applewhite is a regular ne-
gro, of a surly, determined look, with
thick features, woolly hair, large pro-
tuberances above the eyebrows, big jaws
and cheek bones and a black eve.

Mrs. Stowc might have drawn " Drcd *
from him.

IL; is supposed cither to be dead, hid.
den jiwav, wounded, or to have aban.
doned the country, as lie has not been
seen or heard of for several months.

When last heard from ho was faint
from loss of blood, and had received
wounds in the breas: from some soldiery.

He married into the Oxendin^^ fimily,
and was present at the inurde*- of Sheriff
King and elsewhere, and is therefore in-
cluded in the list of outlaws and a re-
ward put upon his head.

JOIJN DIAL, THE STATE'S EVIDENCE.

John Dial, who lies in the jail of Co-
lumbus county, at Whitesville, as Calvin
Lowery does in the jail of New Hano-
ver countv, at Wilir.in<iton, is a lijiht mu-
latto, with a vagrant, fierce look, aggra-
vated by a wart or fleshy protuberance
of some sort on the side of his nose, di-
rectly beside the left eye, which wart is
as large as a marble.

Dial was as bad as any of the jran".
but not bold, and ho prefers the repose
of the jail to wading the swamps with
Henry Lowei-y.

He pays that George Applewhite shot
Sheriff King, while the rest of the band
charge that Dial himself precipitately
drew his pistol and killed that hale old
Carolinian.

SHOEMAKER JOPIN.

"Shoemaker John," who at one time
had dealings with Henry Berry Low-
ery 's party, but has been sent to the
P. nitentiary, is an oval-fjced negro,
good for stealing, but with little stomach
for blood-letting. The Lowerys repu-
diate liim altogether.

THE ONE MAN HANGED

-.- . . ^ , Henderson Oxendine, han<,'ed at Lum

lie IS a picture of a slave at bay. K«..f ., o..^ »■ ' i- ■

r "'*.'' -.1 Oerton some time ago, was a thick-se»

THE SWAMF OUTLAWS.

2»

b'lt trim light mulatt-i, with straight
hair and a stoical face. He died with-
out more than a sigh.

I visited Calvin Oxendine in the Wil-
mington jail, whence nearly the whole
band escaped, he refusing or being afraid
to go.

CALVIN OXENDINE.

The Wilmington jail is an oblong
brick structure, to the front of whicU is
affixed the jailor's residence of a plaster
imitation of sandstone crowned with bat-
tlements.

The jail is small in size, as big as a
country meeting-house, and the rear part
and body of it descends below the street
level into a sunken lot, which is enclosed
by a brick wall capped with nails and
broken glass.

From the upper tier of jail windows
to the ground, is about thirty feet, and
the walls is twelve feet high. A fierce
dog goes at large in the jail yard.

Our worthic-ii occupied one of the rear
corner cells in tne upper tier of this jaii
for six months, and they took out the
bricks at the side of the edifice, making
a small hole, still in outlines distinctly
visible though ro-enclosed, and let them-
selves down with their blankets.

The dog made no alarm, if, as is
doubtful, he was at liberty that night,
and the neighboring vacant lots gave
easy means of escape to our bandit des-
peradoes.

Thejiil is, like most county jails in
the South, a piece of dilapidation with-
out, and of bad construction within, and
other holes in the rear attest how other
prisoners made their riddance.

One of these holes, at the present
writing, has not been bricked up. al-
though some time has elapsed since the
inmates cut it.

TUE BANDIT IN JAIL.

I visited this jail with the courteous
City Marshal of Wilmington, W. P.
Canaday, first entering a livery stable
adjacent, through the open chinks of
which tools were, probably, handed to
the prisoners within, the level being
nearly the same and the walls only
twenty feet apart.

The jail, in the interior, was of an in-
human architecture, the cells beino- en-
closed by a corridor, which debarred
tin-m from light and gave only ventil-
lation by shafts above.

The grated doors admitted very little
light through their narrow chinks, and
murderer or mere peace-breaker shared
a common fate in them, lying almost in
darkness.

A prison without security for the evil
ought to afiord some compensation for
the merely erring, suspected or unfor-
tunate.

This jail, while clean enough, is a relic
of the Middle Ages.

If you take from a man liberty give
him at least light! One of the iron
doors was laboriously unlocked by the
negro jailor, and shaking himself from
the long vision of darkness, Calvin Ox-
endine, an indicted murderer of SheriflT
King, walked out into the corridor.

Here was a situation for John Calvin
the Richelieu of the Huguenots ! That
name, crossing from France to Scotland
and passing into the family nomencla-
ture of Gael and Lowlander, had made
the passage of the ocean with the immi-
grants into Carolina, and these mixed
mulattoes and Indians had inherited it
from their Scotch neighbors and natural
fathers, until now 1 saw before me the
reformer and the bandit, the Geuevese
and the Scuffletonian in Calviu Oxen-
dine.

lie came out from his cell in a greasy

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

shirt and a pair of woolen trousers belt-
ed at the waist, and with his .searching,
round, indescribable eye, looked me
through and through.

It was a black eye, which got its edu-
eation from a country place where they
make an inventory of strangers in the
glimpse afforded by a flash of lightning
and rob them before the next flash.

The speculation in that pair of eyes
that he did glare withal mocked knowl-
edge. It was the gypsy's encyclopedia
of a chicken coop, and I was the chicken
in view.

From my side of the case it was the
worst pair of agates I ever saw — furtive,
plaintive, touching, repelling. God save
us from these mixed races, that we can-
not understand, which civilize them-
selves on no one line of projection, and
give no key t > their tortuous character,
and are to themselves a heathen mys-
tery !

"I came down the road yesterday,
Oxendine, from your part of the world."
The big eyes repeated the perform,
ance.

" From Robeson county ?"
" Yes."

" Well, did you see that party that
went up on Monday — what about

them r'

This with a sort of lethargic earnest-
ness, like a sleepy nature slowly rolling
out of bed.

" You mean Pop Oxendine ?"

"Yes; my brother."

" His trial won't come off for several
days. But tell me, Oxendine, how came
Henry Berry Lowery to get all you boys
in his hands? Has he so much greater
power than you, although younger?"

The fellow rolled his orbs at mt;
again, perfectly submissive, but all
searching— ignorance and cunning and
prowling and wonder reaching out to
drink me in and tathom me — and yet,
withal, a sort of roadside equality.

His rrtther over-fed face ; his cracked,
slipshod shoes; his drooping breeches,

were mean enough; but there was the
gypsy inquiry nearly nonchalant, in
his locrk. Sensual his face certainly was
but a deep fallow of powt-r lay in it,
generations of the bummer worthy of
education from the beginning.

What crimes against human nature
have been committed by Southern pre-
judice against everything with a drop of
the negro in it !

This rascal's eye looked like genius
more than anything I had seen below
Richmond.

" Indeed," he said, after finishing up
the study, coolly. " I can't tell you ; I
don't know anything about it."

Respectful and polite he was all the
time, but in his situation, the answer
was diplomatic, and the next remark
showed that it was not made without •
logical reference to himself.

'• Sheriff, when is my trial coming off.
Am I to lie in this dark place two more
years ?"

" I would insist upon my trial," said
the Sheriff.

" I will. " 1 can't stand it."
Then, after a minute, giving me,
another roll of his quiet eyes, he said.
'* Can you give me a piece of tobacco
sir?'

" No ; but 1 can give you the money
to get it."

He took it, looked at it, and, pro-
nouncing my name plainly, with thanks
although the name had been mentioned
only once, walked voluntarily back to
his cell.

These mulattoes of the families of
Lowery, Oxendine and Strong have
been locked away in the fastnesses of a
hard Scotch population and their develop-
ment cramped.

What might have been the discoverer
has become the buccaneer ; the poet had
become the outlaw.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

BLOOD TRAIL.

Hovr liOwery Avenged the Murders of
a Father and a Brother— Cain's
Bniud the Test of Admission to tlie
Gang— A AVur of Races— The Out-
laws iu the Swamps- The Judge on
the Beucli— The Ku Idux on Their
Ni«-litly Raids— Lowery Breaics
PrTson Twice— Slieritt" King, Nor-
nient. Carlisle. Steve Davis and Joe
Thompson's Slave Murdered by the
Band— Killing the Outlaw's Rela-
tives When They Cannot Catch the
Gang— The Ku Klnx Under Taylor
Slay°"MaUe" Sanderson, Henry Rev-
els and Ben Botha, the Praying
Preacher— A Promise That Was
Kept— "I will kill John Tavlor—
There's No Law for Us ]\[ulattoes.''
Aunt Phoebe's Story— Tlie Hanging
of Henderson Oxendine — Outlaw
Zach Mc Laughlin Shot by an Im-
pressed Outlaw— The Black Neme-
6is.

LcMBARTON, N. C, Feb. 27, 1872.

In two previous letters I have describ-
ed the persons of the Lowreys and some
of their associates, and given the origin
of the local feud which has run into an
extended career of outlawry and crimes.
This letter will recapitulate the leading
crimes on both sides, as derived trom
the best information.

THE TWO ARRESTS AND JAIL-
BREAKINGS OF LOWERY.

Although Henry Berry Lowery swore
an oath of revenge for the murder of his
father and brother in 1R65 he was not
yet entirely given up to outlawry, and
the republican politicians and advisers
of the people of Scuffletown felt some
sympathy for him and sought to save
him. These looked upon the murders
of Harris and Barnes as partly justified.

in the former case by the monstrous
character of the man, in the latter by
motives of self defence and the collisions
of the races in the war.

The old slaveholding element of the
county, however, unaware of the scourge
or humanity they were creating and the
talent as an outlaw leader he was Ho de-
velop, resolved to have and to hang him
at all hazards.

They found that he was to be married
to Rhody Strong, the most beautiful girl
in Scuffletown, and, surrounding the
house on the night of the ceremony , they
took him from the side of his bride —
one A. J. MoNair accomplishing his
capture. The jail at Lumberton was
then in ashes, and the county without a
safe receptacle for

THE YOUNG MURDERER AND BRIDE-
GROOM,

then only twenty years of age. He was
therefore conveyed in irons to the jail at
Whitesville, Columbus county, twenty-
nine miles from Lumberton. Here the
desperate young husband filed his way
out of the grated iron window bars, es-
caped to the woods, and made his waj
back to his wife. This was in 186(^.

In the interrupted enjoyment of fami-
ly happiness Henry Berry Lowery ex-
pressed a desire to quit the swamps and
return to his carpenter's trade and peace-
ful society. His republican friends la-
bored again in his behalf, and they re-
solved to plead the proclamation of ob-
livion for ofTences committed during the
war, issued by the federal department
commanders throughout the South. Dr.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Thomas, Ffeed men's Bureau Agent at
Soulfletown, arranged with the Sheriff,
B. A. Howell, that if Lowery truely
gave himself up, he should be well fed,
not be put in irons, and protected from
the mob. United States troops at that
time were quartered throughout North
Carolina and the rebel element was dis-
Coui'aged.

The Sheriff and Dr. Thomas called
for Lowery at his own cabin, near
Asbury church, and brought him into
Lumberton in a buggy. A new jail haiJ
meantime (18G8) been erected in the
outskirts of the town, constructed en-
tirely of hewed timber. Lowery was
for a time tractable, quiet and confiding
in his advisers. The

SULLEN HOSTILITY OF THE TOWNS-
PEOPLE—

natural enough, no doubt, taward the
murderer of two citizens — soon began
to develop, and complaints were made
that Lowery had three meals a day, and
not, two, like the other prisoners. He
was fed fi'om the outside by a shoemaker
who also acted as jailer, and this good
treatment, added to reports of his proud
and nnintimidated bearing, led to a
public cry that he ought to be ironed
and put on hard fare. It is charged also
— and the story was told to me by three
different persons living widely apart —
that some of the towns-people, hearing
of the line of defence to be assumed for
fco prisoner, had resolved to drag him
tromjail and drown him in the river at
the foot of the jail-yard hill.

At any rate Lowery grew suspicious
and uneasy, and perhaps chafed at con.
finement. One evening, as the jniler
appeared with his food, he presented r.
knife and a cocked repeater, and said : —

" Look here, I'm tired of this. Open
that door and stand aside. If you leave
the place for fifteen minutes you will be

shot as you cQine out!"

He then walked out of the jail, turned
down the river bank, avoiding the town
stopped at a house and helped himself
to (^omo crackers, and, crossing the
bridge, was never again seen in Lumber-
ton.

THE BAD CHARVCTER COMING OUT.

From that day to this he has led the
precarious life of a hunted man and rob-
ber, killing sometimes for plunder,
sometimes for revenge, sometimes {"or
defence. He has refused to trust any
person except those who by bloodshed
put themscdves out of the pale of society
like himself, and he has collected a pack
of murderers whom he absolutely com-
mands, and who have finally diminished
to five, the rest being sent off as un-
worthy, useless or uncongenial

" My band is big enough," he said
last week. " They are all true men and
1 could not be as safe with more. We
mean to live as lon<f as we can, to kill
anybody who hunts us, from the Sheriff
down, and at last, if we must die, to die
game."

To another person he said. " We
are not allowed; to get our living peace-
ably and we must take it from others.
We don't kill anybody but the Ku
Klux."

A steady moral aeciine and grow^mg
atrocity has been remarked of Henry
Berry Lowery, but he has committed no
outrages on women and no arsons. His
confidence and sense of lonely and des-
perate independence have become more
marked. A cool, murderous humor has
gained upon him, and he is a trifle fond
of his distinction. Frequent exhibitions
of magnanimity distinguish his bloody
course and he has learned to arrogate
to himself a protectorate over the inter-
ests of the mulatoes, which they return
by a sort of hero-worship. There is not,
probably, a negr6 in Scuffletown w'hci
would betray him, and his prowess is a

THE SWA]\rP OUTLAWS.

housfthold word in every black family I OXLY A TOOTH AT EACTT SIDE,
ill sea-board Carolina. Ilis consistent I

una

UNFLINCHING METHOD OP WARFARE

has gained him awe amon^ the wjiitos,
amounting nearly to respect, and by n
certain integrity in n'ord and perform-
ance he has come to deal with all the
community as an absolute and yet not
wilful dictator. Like the rattlesnake of
the swamps, he sends warning before he
kills, and only in robbery is remorseless
and sudden.

" My massta — his name's MacQueen
(or MacQuadc) — knocked 'em all out
wid an link stick. God knows I worked
for him wid all my might ; but, you see,
ho wasakeepin'black women and his wife
gwine to leave him, he wanted me to say
she had black men, and IM a died first !
ITe whipped me and beat me, and at last
ho struck mo wid a stick over de monf,
and, Massta, I jess put np my hand up
to catch de blood and all de teef dropp
ed in de palm of my hand. Oh, dis

The family is divided in verdict uj>on wis a hard country, and Henry Bej-ry

his conduct. P.itricl<, Sinclair aii.l
Purdy, who are^fe'hodists, sp(>ak pretty
much in these terms ((pioted from Pat-
rick Lowery, who is a preacher) : —

" My brother Harry had provocation
— the same all of us had— wdien thev
killed my old father. But he has got to
be a ba-1 man, and I pray the Lord to
remove liiin from this world, if he only
repent first."

AN ANTE-BELLUM EPISODE.

A good deal of the above is probably
deceitful. The current opinion of
Scuffletown is as follows, in the lanifunrje
of an aged colored woman at Shoe Heel.

" Massa," she said, '• Hi-nry Berry
Lowery aint gwying to kill nobody but
them that wants to kill him. He's just
a paying these white people back for
killing his old father, brothers and cous-
ins. His old mother f knew right well,
aud she says, " ^ly boys aint doing
right, but I can't help it; I can only jiss
pi-ay for 'em. They wan't a brought up
to do all this misery and lead this yer
kind of life." " Massta," resumed
Aunt Phoebe, •' this used to be a dretnl
hard country for poorniggers. Do you
see my teeth np yer, Massta?"

The old woman drew her lip back with
her finger and showed the empty gum,
with

Lowcry's joss a payin' 'em ba(;k. He's
only a payin' 'om back ! Ii's better
days for dc brack people now. IVfassta,
he's jess de king o' dis countrv."

This is a perfectly literal version of a
Christian old woman's talk. Bandit and
robber as he is, and bloodstained with
many murders, this Lowery's crimes
scarcely take relief from the blotched
background of an intolerant social con-
dition, where the image of God was out-
raged by slavery throug-h two hundred
years of bleeding, suffering and submit-
ting. The black Nemesis is up, playing
the Ku Klux for himself, and for many
a coming generation the housewives of
North Carolina will fri<ihten the chil-
dren with tales of Lowei-y's band. Still,
the fellow is a cold-blooded, malignant,
murderous being, without defenders
even among republicans.

MURDER OF SHERIFF REUBEN KINO.

The first great crime succeeding the
killing of Brant Harris was committed
in the motive of house robbery upon a
highly esteemed old citizen of advanced
years, the Sheriff of Robeson county.
Reuben King. This happened on the
night of January 23, 18G9.

Henry Berry Lowery has since said
that he had no inteutiuu of accuin^iish-

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

inu- the death of this gentleman, but that,
being poor, and aware that King had a
quantity of money in his possession,
the" boys" wanted to rob him, and had
no notion of putting him out of the
world.

After being shot Kinij lingered till
the 13t.h of March, and his antemortem
statements, added to the confession of
Henderson Oxendine, one of the rob-
bers, give us a complete history of the
tragedy. Lovvery alleges that he
whipped George Applewhite, the negro
who fired the fotal shot ; but this may
be meie cunning, and, besides, the ban-
dits have charged the crime upon John
Dial, the State's witness.

The ruffians, hearing t':at King w.is
possessed of considerable money, came
down from Seufflctcwn and hid in a
thicket near his house, which w:is two
miles south of Lumberton. There they
built a fire to warm themselves, and, be-
ing only partly armed, they out blud-
geons from tiie swamp and trimmed
them.

Dial remarked, " The old Sheriff may
resist us !"

" if he does," exclaimed Boss Strong,
'* we'll kill him !"

Tlxey blackened their faces to disguise
their identity and race more securely,
and then, to the number of eight or nine
moved, with the stealth of Indians, up
to the dwelling of the hale old gentle
man.

Sheriff King w;is reading the report
of a recent Baptist Convention beside
his fireplace. In another part of the
room — the parlor — Edward Ward, one
of his neighbors, who had come to pass
the night, was reading a book. Sud-
denly the door was pushed open and

A ROW OF BLACKENED, HIDEOUS
FACES

appeared over the threshold, while a

gun barrel was pointed at King, and an
imperative voice said : —

" Surrender !"

The man Ward sat as if paralyzed.
The Sheriff. I'oused at the summons from
his book, scarcely understood the situa-
tion. By a fatal, instinctive movement
he leaped up and seized the menacing
firearm, and bent it down toward the
flour. Henry Berry Lowery, the hold-
er of it, struggled at the butt and bent
it up again, and in the wrestle the piec«
was discharged into the parlor floor,
burning and scarring the boards tliere.
By this time the cl-oseness of the en-
counter and the SherifTs stiff and pow-
erful hold upon the gun had brought his
body around so that his back was toward
the open door. At this instant a pistol,
at close quarters, was fired into the old
man's head from behind, and he fell to
the flour in agony. The robbers im-
mediately, and without show of resis-
tance, fired at Edward Ward and felled
him with a wound which lasted for
months.

The females of the family, rushed in
and stood horrified spectators of the
miserv of the two men. The blackened
and excited faces of the robbers struck
them with additional terror.

"Water!" gasped the bleeding
Sheriff; " I am burning up ! For God's
sake give nn' 80me water !"

"God damn you!" cried one of the
villains, " what did you fight for?

"YOU SHAN'T HAVE WATER."

It was a scene of indescribable bl odi-
ness — the screaming women, menaeed
by the resolute robbers; the groaning
victims, the disguised faces of the fiends
and their lust for plunder paramount.
No wonder that Henry Berry Lowery,
ashamed of the remembrance, threatens
to shoot any man who says he took part
in the performance.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

THE HOME- GUARD DEMORALIZED

After a little time one of the women
was allowed to go and get water, while
the rest were locked up under guard.
Then the robbers ransacked the house;
opened trunk after trunk and took some
of them out in the yard to investigate
their contents. They finally made their
escape laden with plunder, and it was
not until John Dial pointed out the
place wiiere they had cut clubs in the
swamp and built the fire that the whole
matter was exposed. Dial has now been
in jail at Whitesville two years. Two
of '.he persons concerned in this murder
have been condemned and escaped, two
are in jail and one was hanged.

THE ONLY BANDIT HANGED.
Henderson Oxendine was finally
arrested at the house of his brother-in-
law, George Applewhite, the negro,
while waiting for Mrs. Applewhite to be
confined. The authorities, aware of the
condition of the culprit's sister, stayed
around the house all night and got in at
daylight, supposing Applewhite to be
there. They at once arrested Hender-
son Oxendine and Pop Oxendine. The
pfrsons named as present at the murder
of Sheriff Kinjr, in 18G9, were John
Dial, Stephen Lowery, George Apple-
wliite, Henderson Oxendinp, and Calviu
Oxendine. These at least were in the

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

custody of the officers at one tirnp, while
Henry Berry Lo\v(;ry, Boss Strong and
others also present, were at large,

Steve Lowery and George Applewhite
were condemned to be hanged, when,
prematurely, the majority of the pris-
oners, among them the condemned, dug
their way out of the prison.

When Henderson Oxendine was
hanged there were about thirty-five per-
sons present in the small jail yard, bu^
the tree tops overlooking the enclosure
were filled with whites and negroes.

The gallows was of the rudest con-
traction, built against the high picket

fence of the jail, with a trap, which was

held up by a rope passing over the short

beam secured, behind the Upright joist

by a wooden clamp, so that it could be

severed by the blow of a hatchet.

Oxendine's mother came to the jail the

morning of the execution and condoled

with her boy.

He was a thin-jawed, columnar-necked
wild, whitish mulatto, with ears set back
like a keen dog's, a good forehead, pierc-
ing, almost staring round eyes, with
dark, barbaric lights in them, a nose
eminent for its alert nostril, and a long-
ish, near bottomed chin, set with thin,
dirtyish beard, and a mouth of African
suggestion.

Pride and stoicism were in his expres-
sion, and negro-like, he sung a couple of
hymns on the gallows out of the Baptist
collection.

His executioner was a Northern rough
named Harden, or Marsden, a waif
from somewhere, who resembled a
sailor's boarding house runner, and was
of lower estate than the Lowerys.

This is one of the beings who has
rung himself in on the people of
Robeson county, ostensibly as a detec-
tive. He pinioned Oxendine and then
severed the supporting rope with the
hatchet.

No attempt at rescue wag made.
THE MURDER OF OWEN C. NORMENT.

The first murder committed in cold
blood for revenge was upon the person
of Owen C. Norment, who lived four
miles from the hut of Plenry Berry
Lowery and eight miles from Red
Banks station. His house was also
three miles from Alfordsville, on the
road to Lumberton, and not far from
the dwelling of a white desperado called
Zach McLaughlin. Aaron Swamp, a
feeder of Back Swamp, was near Nor-
ment's house. Triis murder was com-
mitted by Zach McLaughlin, by order
of Henry Berry Lowery, who, with hi.s
command, was posted near. It was the
first white man killed by the gang since
18G4, a lapse of more than five years.

Norment was an overbearing ex-
slaveholder, who had shot a man dead
at Charlotte, N, C, for calling him a
liar, and had been tried for it and ac-
quitted.

He had very black hair, whiskers and
eyes, and weighed about one hundred
and sixty-five pounds.

His ofllence was I'aising the people
against the L)werys, charging robberies
to them and threatening them.

Hearing loud noises, as of the stir-
ring up of domestic animals, the rat-
tling (if wagon chains, &c., outside of
his house.

Norment walked out in the dusk of a
Saturday evening and asked who was
present. Hearing somebody moving in
the dusk, he called for his wife to give
him his gun.

Almost immediatelv a gun was fired
only ten feet from Norment and he was
shattered in the lower members and
elsewhere with shot and ball.

He fell instantly, and being removed
to the house, a servant was despatched
for a physician.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Dr. Dick obeyed the summons, and
being driven in a mule buggy by one
Bridgers, they were greeted, one mile
from Norment's honse, with a discharge
of firearms, which killed the mule and
forced the driver and the doctor to take
to the woods.

The same night Archie Graham, a
neighlior, was shot and dangerously
wounded, and also Ben MacMillan, an-
other obnoxious personage.

Tho house of a Mr. Jackson, on the
Elizabeth road, was sIm) fired into and
his dog killed.

The robbers held carnival that night
and resumed the reign of terror.

Norment's leg was amputated, but
the doctor was nervous, as the wounds
were fata!, for he died on Monday
morning, thirty-six hours after being
shot, leaving a wife and three children.

THE MURDER OF JOE THOMPSONS

SLAVE.

The Lowervs had once been slave-
holders, and Henry Berry always refers
to the full blacks as " niggers."

A good while prior to the time of the
killing of O. C. Norment the Lowery
gang shot dead a negro belonging to
one Joe Thompson, who lived at
Ashpole Swamp, sixteen miles from
Lumberton, and was a neighbor of
Henry Berry Lowery.

Tlie band had robbed Thompson's
house of bedclothing, <kc., and, thinking
of some story relative to their doings
which the negro had told, they shot him
dead at his own shanty.

Then they ordered Thompson's driver
to gear up the family carriage and drive
them home, which he did, and they left
the vehicle not far from Henry Berry
Lowery's house.

This must have been about at the
close of the war, for tho driver narrates
that three United States deserters or

escaped prisoners were then with the
mulatto robbers.

THE FATE OF ZACII M'LAUGHLIN. .

Tliis Zach McLaughlin, who is alleged
to have inflicted the mortal wound upon
Mr, Norment, met with a fate justly
deserved.

He was a native of Scotland, and one
of a low, sensual, heathenish type of
white men who consorted with mulattoes
and spent his low energies in seducing
mulatto girls and women.

Having laid out in the swamps with
the Strongs, Lowerys and Applewhite,
lie picked up an almost equally renegade
white by the name of Biggs, when, one
evrninc, the twain met at a mulatto
shanty upon an identical object — nam.ely
a mulatto syren.

As they quitted the place to go home
McLaughlin, who was drinking deeply
of villanous liquor, said to Biggs, with
an oath : —

" I'll kill you right here unless yo\i
join with me and rob the rmokehouses
and shanties of some of tluse fi-eedmen.
We want you with our crowd, and
you've got to come or die."

Biggs says in his statement that ho
went, out of the feiir t)f death, and
helped in the robberies of that night,
but privately made up his mind to
escape from McLaughlin or to kill hini

McLaughlin finally grew very drunk,
and insisted upon building a fire at a
place in the sw:inip and resting there.

These twu men were now quite sep-
arated trom other compani<tnship, and
when the fire was lighted, McLaughlin,
who possessed a monopoly of the arms,
compelled Biggs to sleep between him-
self and the burning brands, while he,
meantime, bent akimbo over the burn-
ing blaze and dozed.

Biggs began to test the sleeping out-

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

oast by roUiiifj and moving, and finally
by jostling McLiughlin.

Reniemberini; his description of his
pistols, and in particular one pistol,
which was described as

NEVER MISSING FIRE.
Biggs manage i to pull it from the sheath
in McLaughlin's belt. With this he
shot the white outlaw through and
through and then slipeed away into the
swamp to see if he moved.

The drunken beast being perfectly
dead, Bij^gs made his way to Lumber-
ton and related the story. Seaith was
made, and cfi the spot of ground indi-
cated, beside the extinguished fire, the
bloody carcass of McLaughlin was dis-
eovered.

Just previous, to. this affiiir — Novem-
ber 9, 18T1 — ^McLaughlin and Tom
Lowery had escaped from Lumberton
jail by availing tiiemselves of a loose
iron bar and wrenching the grates off
the jail windows.

Biggs received 8400 for his two shots
into McLaughlin's body.

He has figured in a subordinate
degree since that time as a volunteer to
capture the outlaw chief.

McLaughlin was altogether a meaner
specimen of mankind than the Strongs
and Lowerys.

THE MURDER OF STEVE DAVIS.

On the 3d of October, 1870, the
Lowery band of outlaws appeared at the
house of Angus Leach, near Floral
College (female), and pnjceeded to seize
a large quantity of native brandy, dis-
tilled there for the fruit-jrrowins neigh-
bors — some say brandy designed to
to evade the revenue Laws.

Lowery's band was alert and fond of
strong drink, and they seized all the
available vessels at hand — kegs, pitch-
ers, pots and measures — to transport the
liquor.

Unwilling to despoil without inflict-
ing pain, they struck old Angus Leach
over the hip with ;i gun stock, disabling
him, and a negro man, .showing some
solicitude for the fluid property, they
tied up, whipped him with a wagon
trace and slit his ears with a penknife.

Thi liquor which they did not remove
they destroyed bef)re the United States
revenue officer could find it.

Next night the persons who had placed
their fruit, &c., for distillation at this
place, started in pursuit of the fugitives.

They found the whole p.irty, very
drunk, at George Applewhiti-'s, between
Red Banks and PI timer's station.

Applewhite was an alert, thick-lipped
deep-browed, woolly headed African,
with a steadflist, brutal expression.

Firing into the house the outlaws
rushed out, well armed and spoiling fo"-
a fight. The neighbors wounded nearly
every man of the party.

Boss Strong was shot in the forehead
Henderson Oxendine in the arm and
George Applewhite in the thigh.

Steve O. Davis, of Moore county, a
fine young man and brave as youth dare
be, rushed ahead of the party and forced
the fighting in the swampy edge of the
field where the outlaws were.

Henry Berry Lowery took deliberate
sight upon him and shot hiwi through
the back of the head. He fell dead.

THE MURDER OF CARLISLE.

I possesss no data upon the murder
of a Mr. Carlisle, who appears to have
been killed in the early part of the
open and announced warfare, except the
record that some of the bobtail followers

of Lowery's band were accused of the
crime.

One " Shoemaker John," not proven
guilty of the murder of Mr. Carlisle,
received a sentence of ten years in tha
State Penitentiary March 1, 1871, foF

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

burglary. He appeared to be glad of
the opportunity to go safely to jail and
to escape, on the one hand, the mob, and
on the other the Lowery gang.

"DAL BAKER."

In the fall of 18G0 Daniel or " Dal"
Baker was shot in the leg while near
Scuflletown, and his leg hud to be
amputated.

Several other shootings occurred
about this time, and the war being now
•well understood, the citizens, volunteers,
militi;i and two companies of United
States troops started in to make a set
campaign against the outlaws.

Here some atrocities were committed
properly belonging to this narrative.

Amonii the ci imes of the Lowerv
band must be placed in legitimate con-
text some of trie more precipitate crimes
committed ngainst the mulatoes of
Scuflletown by their white neighbors.

Eight negroes have been killed by the
whites episodically in the hunts for the
Lowerys.

THE MURDER OF BEN BETITA.

Bon Botha was a full-blooded negro
and a violent radical republican among
his color, and he was used bv the re-
publican politicians to disseminate their
doctrines and keep the color in Scuflle-
town united in vote and sentiment.

He was what is called a praying
politician, apt to be frenzied and loud in
prayer and to exhort wildly, and he has
cunning enough to ring politics and the
wrongs of the colored people into his
prayers, so that he might have been said
to pray the whole ticket.

Last winter the democrats having full
possession of the county, and the Ku
Klux cfi'iK barefaced and undisjiuisedlv
through Samson, Richmond and the
adjoining counties, it was resolved to
Taake an example of this praying negro.

The Coroner of the county, KoUer*
Chaafin, got a party ostensibly to limit,
for Lowery, he being tho pretext for ;ill
Ku Klux operations in Robeson, and it
is alleged that some members of the
party came out of Battery A. United
States artillery, then posted in an<l about
Scuffletown.

THE ROBESON COUNl'Y KU KLUX

seldom wore disguises, the Lowery jire-
text covering all their operations.

With eighteen voung men thev start-
ed towai-ds Ben Betha's and the propo-
sition w:is then sprung to take liiiu out
and kill him that night.

Alarmed at this, Chaafin, the !Mac-
Queens, and somo of the more prudi'Ut
turned back, afraid of Judge Russell's
bench warrants. Malcolm MaoNeil now
took command, and, at the head of tun
men, marched up to Ben Botha's door
between twelve and one o'clock, and
rapping there, said to the negro as he
appear! d : —

" Cotne out here? We want you."
T.;e darky seemed aware by their reso.
lute faces that his hour, long threatened,
had come, and he turned I'bout and said
to his w ife — " Ole woman, 1 specs they's
gwine to l<in me. Mobbe I'll never
come back no mo'."

*• Go and jjet vourhat!" was the nex;
order, and then the negro was lifted out
of the shanty, and for one quarter of a
mill' there was no sign of his well known
foot tracks.

The fact was that he had been lifted
on a horse and ridden off a quarter of a
mile, so as to hide his traces. The
tracks reappeared after a certain distance
and the negro was never more heard of
after that night, but was found dead,
shot through and through.

Judge Russell called npon the Gnind
Jury to indict every man of this party ;
but the Grand Jury, with that prove -

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

bial Southern justice manifested towards
the negro,

IGNORED THE BILL,

and then the Judge, witli almost extra
Judicial severity, put his written protest
on the records of the Court, and
denounced the action of the Grand Jury
as outrageous.

He then issued his bench warrant, and
outlawed every man concerned in the
killing of Betha, and they all ran out of
the county.

Malcolm AlacNiel went to Baltimore*
where he is a clerk in a store, and his
brother has fled lo I\Iississippi. This
happened only a few months ago.

The negio waiter in the hotel at Lum-
berton said to me in the presence of
several white men of the town : —

"They say they go up to Scultietown
tohuntLovvery ; but I never knew them
to go there without killing some inno-
cent person."

THE MURDER OF HENRY REVELS.

The mui'der of Henry Revels, a mu-
latto boy, is nnother case in point. One
night Dr. Smith, north of Scuffletown,
came into that settlement and said he had
been shot at on the road by somebody.

Dr. Smith was a brother of Colonel
Smith, the democratic Treasurer of the
county, and also a merchant at Shoe
Heel.

Putting their heads together the Shoe
Heelers concluded that the fellow was
Henry Revels, a likely mulatto, who
had become a leading republican and
was somewhat saucy around that region.

He had been brought up by Hugh
Johnson and made a body servant, so
that he had a better appearance and
more intelligence than the ordinary run
of Scuffletowners.

Fifteen or sixteen men on horseback

Heel and rode six miles off, to Johnson's
place, and took young Revels by force
out of the house, telling him not to open
his mouth.

They carried him to the vicinity of
Floral College, wliere resided the Rev.
Mr. Coble, chaplain on the occasion of
the killing of old Allen F.owery.

There Revels was shot dead and his
carcass thrown behind a woodpile. The
negroes found the carc.iss and called up
the reverend divine to i.lentify it.

Coble, by this time not anxious to fall
into the hands of Judge Russell, had the
Coroner cited, but before a jury could
be summoned some person concerned in
the murder took the body and hid it in
a mudhole, where the negroes again
discovered it and the inquest was held.

Warrants were issued for these Ku
Klux, and put in the hands of Juhn Mac
Niell, of Smith township, the constable
there, but he failed to do his duty and
all the parties ran away.

THE OXENDINES SHOT AND WHIPPED.

This MacNeil, although a constable
and head of the militia in his township,
was personally concerned in the outrage
on the Oxendines.

Hearing that Tom Lowery, one of
the outlaws, was dead, and wishing to
prove it and discover the body, perhaps
for the purpose of getting the reward, it
was resolved to pay the Oxendines a
visit.

They went to the h'Mise of Jesse
Oxendine, son of John, who was work-
ing quietly at turpentine-making, and
MacNiell said : —

" Where is Tom Lowery buried ?"

John Oxendine replied that he did
not know, and was not aware that he
was dead.

The constable's posse then put a strap
around the neck of Oxendine. and, pass-

and in buggies started out from Shoe ing it over the limb of a tree, hun<rhim

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

up but the man's weight broke the limb.

They hung him to a second limb, but
the sapling- bent toward the ground.

Thoii they put the strap around his
nock so that the ends hung over, and
two men pullrd it each way until the
nejrro irrew black in the face.

Nearly at the same time they shot
another of the Oxendines, at his own
gate-post through both hands.

Bench warren ts were issued, but they
could not have them served by the
Sheriff or the United States officers, and
the fifteen or twenty men cuncerued in
the outrage went out of the county for
a while until the thing blew over.

In this brutal way the hunt for Henry
Berry L )wery goes on, and the people
who cannot catch him revenge them
selves upon his neighbors.

THE MURDER UF ' MAKE ' SANDERSON.

The mu filer of Make Sanderson —
Make meaning Malclom — would have
been fully investigated had it not been
for the fact that Tom Rus^sell, a brother
of the republican Judge .Russell, was
one of the party who murdered him and
the Judge let the subject drop ou that
account.

Make Sanderson was a mulatto of
such li<:ht skin that before the war he
enjoyed the general privilege of whites.
He married a sister of Henderson
Oxendine, who was afterwards hanged
at Lumberton. Sanderson's wife being
also the daughter of John Oxendine,
who was a half brother of old Allen
Lowery, father of the Lowery gang.

There appears to have been nothing
charged against Make Sanderson except
his relationship by marriage to the
Lowery family.

Tt is generally asserted that he was a
harmlesss man, " bossed" by his wife.
On one of tho periodical futile raids for
Henry Lowery the militia, or the volun-

teers, among whom was Murdoch Mac-
lain Ji>[u\ TdyU)r, the Pursells, 'i'oni
Russell and others, arnsled Make
Sanderson and Andrew Strong, and,
tying their wrists together so tightly
that the blood came, marched them to
the house of Mr. liiinan, a republican
and lather of the boy afterwards

KILLED DY THE LOWERVS.

At Inman's they gi)t a plough line,
and, tvins; the two more securelv, then
marched the pair to John Taylor's who
lived about two miles from !Moss Neek.

As Jt)hn Tavlor had gone over to the
house of his father-in-law, William C.
MacNiell, the march was continued to
that point, and here, in the dusk, the
party stopped in MacNiell's lane, send-
ing messancs to and fro until dark.

The object of this was to keep the
crime within the circle and not put the
MacNiells in danger of Henry Berry
Lowery's vengeance.*

While the negroes were led together
Andrew Stroiis, certain that lie was
going to be shot, gave his penknife to
Ben Strickland, another negro, and told
him to give it to his wife, because it was
all that he had in the world, and he
should never see her again.

This latter point came out as circum-
stantial evidence,because afterwufdsJohn
Taylor attempted to deny that he ever
had Andrew Strong in custody when he
was brought before the Court for the
murder of Make Sanderson.

At dirk both negroes were brought
up to William C. MacNiellJ<s yard, and
all the party of capturers took food on
the piazza, and while there John Taylor,
a black-eyed, black-haired, bearded, reso-
lute man and the most determined
hunter that ever started against the
Lowerys, walked out of the bouse upon
the piazza.

Both the negroes fell on their kuees

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

and held up their hands, bound as they
were, and cried : —

"O, Mr. Tayloi-, save my life! Save
my life !"

A KU KLUX NERO.

Taylor drew baci< with liis foot half
raised, as if about to kick tliem, and he
said, bitterly : —

" If all the mulatto blood in the coun-
try was in you two, and with one kick
I could kick it out, 1 would send you ail
to hell together with my foot."

The nejiroes were then taken across
MacNeill's dam, where John Taylor,
within a few weeks, was to fall dead
with the roof of his head shot off, and
marched to the woods north of ISIoss
Neck station, about one mile, until the
party reached a sort of wild dell in the
lonely country.

John Taylor did not accompany the
party, but the two MacNeills did, and
also Murdoch MacLain, Tom Russell,
some of the Pursells and John Pater-
son, of Richmond county.

Andrew Strong, who afterwards re-
lated these incidents to his lawyer, says
that himself and Make Sanderson were
now made to stand up together, asked
if iney had anything to say, because
they had now got to die, and with this
their hats were pulled down over their
eyes witn an ostentation of pity. Mur-
doch MacLain, who appeared to be the
captain, then cried out : —

" The shooting party will be Nos. 1,
2, and 3. Step out !" "

Andrew Strong asserts that No. 2 was
" Sandy'' MacNeil, brother-in-law of
John Taylor.

Make Sanderson, who appeared per-
fectly resigned, asked if they would
give him time to pray.

After a little conterence the answer
was : — " Yes, you may pray."

Strong says that Make Sanderson

then fell on his knees and made the
most wonderful prayer that he ever
heard in his life, the woods ringing with
his loud, frenzied utterances as he spoke?
of his wife and children, and finally,-
negro fashion, he became so earnest
that one of the fellows, who had a towel
wrapped around his head — so had the
majoiity — stepped- up and hit Sander-
son with the butt of a pistol, saying.

"Shut up, you damned nigger! You
shan't make any such noise as this if you
are going to be shot !"

AFTER THE PRAYER,

there was some little delay among the
assassins.

Some ot them were evidently sff^winw
frightened between the prospects of
vengeance from Sanderson's connections
and Judge Russell's Court.

This interval Andrew Stronjr im-
proved to loosen, little by little, the rope
which tied his wrists to Sanderson's and
suddenly getting his hand out he rushed
into the woods and ran like a deer.

Thev riddled the woods with buck-
shot and ball, but never saw him again
until he appeared against John Taylor
and others in the Court at Lumberton.

The remaining negro, who exhibited
no desire to run, being a weak fellow
without much stamina, was taken back
to the mill dam by MacNiell's house,for
the party had lost spirits and feared that
the other negro would inform upon
them.

Here, it is said, they consulted with
John Taylor, who said that indecision
w(juld do no good, and that now the
negro had better be' killed, since his
companion would spread the tidings.

For two days Make Sanderson was
not seen. John Tavlor and all the band
denied having encountered him at all.

A negro found him below the mill
tail, in the swamp place behind the mill,

THE SWAMF OUTLAWS.

\\ MYW'f'X

A SPY CAUGHT BY T!HE LOWERY B AIM BITS-

shot in the abdomen with a great

quantity of buckshot, and then again

shot in the back of the neck, in such

close quaitcrs that his hair was burned

as by the flanh of a pistol.

The man looked as if he had first

been shot and then endeavored to grope

his way up out of the water, for the

p.'ilms of his hands and fingers were
torn.

The body was deposited in IMacNiell's
mill and then hastily buried, but the
Magistrate of Lurnberton, Parson Sin-
clair, had it disinterred and the inquest
held.

The verdict was, "Shot by parties
unknown to the jury."

Magistrate Sinclair issued warrants
for the leaders in this affair, and sent
thorn to prison without bail ; but Judge
Russell, notwithstanding the high nature
of his offence, released John Taylor on
a bond of $500, supposedly because Tom
Russell was in the transaction.

When Henry Berry Lowery heard
that John Taylor was out on $500 bail,
and that this was considered security
(Miough for the murder of his relative,
he said —

" WELL, I WILL KILL JOHN TAYLOR "

there is now no law for us mulattoes."

Three weeks afterwards, as John Tay.

lor crossed tflio mill dam, coming down

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

from ihe house of his f ither-iii-hiw to
the station, the gang of outlaws rose from
the swamp within thirty yards of the
place where Sanderson had been killed'
and Henry Berry Lowery shot the skull
and brains ont of Taylor and then rob-
bed him of his pockctbook

Tkus perished a man brave, zealous,
active and a good citizen to all but

negr es, whom, with the old-fashioned
contempt for slaveholders, he regarded,
in the language of Judge Taney, as
" without rights that white men were
bound to respect."

Here my letter exceeds bounds, and
I will try to finish up the bloody reca-
pitulation in one more article.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

TIIR MrLVTTO CAPITAL,

Origin of the Free Negro Settlement.
Fir-t AppearaiK'e ut the Lowery
Ilalr-Kreods Tlie Old Tiisoarora
Blood. Life and FiM'liii<? in Sciitnc-
towii. Caiiso of the Vciulelta. Low-
ery's Cousins Slain by Brant Harris.
Tlie Mnrdcr of Barnes and Harris.
Old .Mien Lowery and Bill Lowery
Shot by tlie Hume Guard. The Vow
of Keveu.i;^e. Abortive Eftbrts to
Iklake I'eace. The Lowerys Exempt-
ed From the Act of Oblivion.

LuMBERTON, N. C, Feb. 2G, 187-2.

Here is the place wHere the Lowery
gansr has been in jail, whence futile pro-
cesses are issued for them, and where
any of the members ever caught will be
hanired or burned.

Id is a ti)wn almost wholly built of un-
painted planks or logs, which have be-
come nearly black with weather stains.
The streets arc sandy and without pave-
ments of cither brick or wood.

About nine hundred people reside in
the place, and nearly every white man
in it and in the surrounding country is
Scotch."

The country was settled by Scotch
Highlanders before the Revolution, and
afterwards by a promiscuous emigration
from the west coast of Scotland.

About thirty miles distant, at Fay-
ctteville, lived Donald and Flora Mac-
Donald, the latter the savior of Prince
Charles, the Pretender, the former the
defeated champion of the royal standard
at the beginning 0/ our war of independ
ence.
_ These Scotch slaveholders were hard

taslt masters, and they look with pinch-
ed and awry faces upon the negro voting
beside them.

The county government is democratic,
and so perfectly impotent to catch or
kill five outlaws that at present it is
mailing no exertions whatever.

fiideed, the opinion prevails that the
SherifTs office has concluded a truce
up^n what are called honorable terms
with Henry Berry Lowery.

If it can be said that these bandits
are republicans it must also be charged
that the county government is demo-
cratic, and the honors are easy between
pillage and impotence.

COURT SCENES AT LUMBERTON.

The Court House is built of brick,
with a frame pediment above the eaves
in the gable end, and the court room in
the second story is covered Milii saw-
dust to keep the peace while Judge
Clarke, one of the District Judges, goes
through the comedy of justice.

" Make proclamation !" cries he, or
his clerk, to the Sheriff, who stands at
an open window opposite the bench, and
who roars down in a stentorian way to
the people assembled in the public aiTa :
"Neil Mc Neil ! Campbell McGrcngor!
McLcod Duncan ! come into court, as
you are this day commanded, or your
security will be forfeited to the State!"

This kind of noise,*^with variations of
" Oh, yes ! Oh, yes !" goes on pretty
much all day, while witnesses, jurors
and attached people are being summon-
ed.

TPIE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

The court room is very crude, large
and bare, and the Judge looks amazing-
ly hi<;h up behind the long gallery where
they expose him.

He is a queer, affiible old Judge, who
has fought in the Mexican war, in the
Confederate arntiy, and commanded one
of Holden's regiments (Kirk leading the
other) against the Ku Klux.

He is at present what is called a
" scalawag," and says, among m.my
other things of no consequence, that if
he ever sees Lowery he will kill him.
The opportunities appear good for this
sort of intention.

Down before the Court House, where
the people of the county are congre-
gated, there is an old pole well in the
public square, where white and negro
fill their gourds at the dripping backet.
Around the corner stands the old
3ray — curious vehicle for such a village
— on which the Lowery band hauled off
a safe from the rear of a Lurnberton
store, deliberately backing the dray up
throuirh an alley between two houses
and leisurely setting the valuable casket
thereon, stopping at the Court House,
with a contempt of superstition, to haul
off the county safe.

To do all this required the opening of

a man's stable, stealing his horse and

the robbing of a blacksmith's shop of

tools to break open the safes, as well as

the impressment of an additional pair of

wagon wheels to convey the larger safe

to the woods. The horse could not pull

the whole load, and the county safe was

dropped off within town limits. The

valiant volunteers and posse of the

Sheriff marched out of town two or

three miles and found the private safe

rl93,d of about twenty-seven thousand

dollars.

This was money which had been

placed in the hands of the safe-owner

\ for private keeping. Strange as It may

seem, this robbery caused a feeling of
relief in many minds.

With so great a quantity of money it
was hoped that Lowery 's band might
have quitted the country, and such rid-
dance would have been cheaply pur-
chased at the figure named.

LIFE AT THE BELEAGUERED TOWN.

The tavern at Lumberton is without
a sign-post, and is a weather-stained
frame house, with small bedrooms, no
carpets, no bar and a fair country table.
1 found no milk to drink with coffee
anywhere in the region, but plenty of
esiis and chickens.

The jail — not on the same site where
Henry Berry Lowery was once confined,
and whence several of the outlaws ef-
fected their escape — is truly a singular
edifice.

It is built in a grove of oaks and pines
in the environs of the town, and con,
structed wholly of hewn timber, enclosed
bv a high paling picket fence, outside
of which picket is a log guard house for
small offenders.

I stepped inside the jail yard, nobody
objecting, to make a sketch of the gal-
lows where Henderson Oxendine recent-
ly met his fate stoically, no rescue at-
tempted, only the singing of a couple of
volnntary hymns himself, negro fashion.
The cord supporting the drop was not
severed by the Sheriff, but a desperado
from Ohio voluntarily assumed the
office.

While I sat within the sloping jail
yard I heard a banjo " tumming" in the
jail, and ttie negroes confined there were
comparing with Pop Oxendine and the
newly arrived offenders for Wilmington
the relative quality of meals vouchsafed
at the two prisons.

The Lumber River, which flows into
the Little Pedee, of South Carolina, and
reaches the aea near Georgetown, is at

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

this time of the year little wider than a j
cit)- street, and of running water, but
barely forilablc and capable of carrying
lo'fs :ind rafts of lumber down the six
score miles of its cour.se.

Ileariiig horrible imprecations made
on the other side of the river, accom-
panied by cries of " Give me my knife !
Yes, I'll cut his heart out ! I say gi'e
me my knife ! My blood's been insult-
ed. A man ot hoiio' can't live after he's
been kicked out o' that court room !"
<fec., <fcc.,

I was relieved to find that it was
merely a negro lad, rejoicing in his rights
as a freem-in, who wanted to escape,
Lowery-fashion, from his mother and
brother, and vent his whiskey courage
upon somebody.

There are many negroes, as 1 found,
whose freedom takes the form of boast-
ing and cursing.

I failed to perceive in the attorneys
and merchants of Lumberton any
particular cnideness or inferiority.

Judge L.'ech and several others were
representative men of good sense, but
of strong, unmanageable political and
social prejudices, and they have suc-
ceeded in segregating and solidifying
the negro vote, so that the two faces
may about be said to make the two
political parties.

Here, in the large and motley crowd
assembled to attend Court, were to be
seen the rival elements of this pro-
vicial population.

The whiles generally wore butternut,
copperas-colored or gray home-spun
stuff and large-rimmed, flat, stiff felt
hats.

Many of them were very ignorant
and could not read, and looked upon the
Court as the very judgment seat of
Caesar.

"Yon just stand up and when your
name is called you say 'guilty' and pay

your money," I heard a lawyer say to a
boor. The boor looked as if it required
vast heroism to say even as much

THE SCUFFLETOWNERS AT COURT.

Here, also, were the Scuffletown mu-
lattoes — that curious race — imposed up-
on for many generations by master and
slave, their husbands cuckolded their
women debased and intimidated, their
freedom! not worthy of the name.

Had Robeson county exerted decent
endeavors to protect these immemorial
free people, when slavery was the law
and the' horrible radical had not yet
subverted " the constitution " which few
of tlie folks who weep for it ever read,
or, reading, respected — this ( xisLing
outlawry would have been precluded.

Scuffletown, over whose name and
etymology there seems to be debate,
possibly got its name from the long
scuffle of the whites and the slaves to
reduce it to peonage and make freedom
under the condition of color, contempti-
ble among the mulattoes.

Nobody in the whole region could
account for this free negro settlement — •
one of two large aggregations of yellow
men which has existed in North Carolina
since the organization of society.

There were many theories, but no
reasons at hand fur them.

1 conceive that these negroes might
have been the slaves of tories driven
from the State at the close of the Revo-
lution, or of the emancipated slaves of
the Quakers, and that they increased
and multiplied by accessions from run-
aways, by the birth rate of force ex-
erted on them and by the necessity of
union or the sympathy of all neighbor-
ing free negroes with a homogeneous
settlement.

The comely mulatto women, the
strange mulatto men, both sexes decent-
ly clad, were plentiful in town — some

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS

arriving on mule back, some in short,
bometnade carts, many on foot.

There was a good deal of drink ins^-
among the men and of covert courtship
and ogling among the girls. Virtue
was evidently not uniformly high in
Scuffletown.

SCUFFLETOWN TOPOGRAPHICALLY.

The Rutherford and Wilmington
Railroad runs westward from Lumber-
ton River.

Eight miles northwestward it strikes
the station of Moss Neck. Seven miles
from Moss Neck it strikes the station
of Red Banks.

These two stations bound Scuffletown,
which spreads besides three or four
miles on both sides of the track, and is
surrounded on three sides with swamps,
which send branches of swamp up
through it, and in wet weather each of
these swamps are receivers of supplies
" bays," bottoms, or pools, which per-
meate the mulatto fortress.

In fact, it is a part of the "great
swamp district of North and South
Carolina, below the terrace of hills, and
yet is nothing particularly frightful,
even to a stranger, and quite unlike our
notion of the swamps of Florida and
Louisiana.

These swamps enclose the rivers and
their arteries laterally for a few yards,
and often, or generally, as the stream
winds, there is swamps on one side and
low clay sandbluffs opposite. It is a
mean country for troops to trespass
upon, but not an impregnable country.
I believe that I am safe in saying that
no Northern society would plead this
region as excuse for not following up
and annihilating such a crowd as Low-
ery's band.

THE LAND OF LOWERY.

Taking the railroad as the axis of

reference, and looking away from Lum-
berton northwestward, we see Rafl
Swamp leave the river first, and after
six or seven miles incursion northward,
send on, parallel with the railroad on
the right. Burnt Swamp, Panther
Swamp, and Richland Swamp, exten-
sions of each other. On this side of the
track Lowery's band have never com-
mitted a murder, unless thev killed the
McLeods.

Two or three miles above Raft Swamp
— the river bending to the riiiht of the
track — the Lumber River, itself swamp
girt, sends off at opposite sides Bear
Swamp (for Jack's Branch), which en.
closes Moss Neck and Bule's stations,
and Back Swamp, which lies about
paralled with the Lumber for twenty
miles, and projects to the southward
Ashpole Swamp and Aaron Swamp.

Here, then, are four series of swamps,
counting the swampy Lumber River,
The swamps are only a mile ov two
apart and their feeders diminish the
distance. On Back Swamp the Lowery
band keeps its ambush and secret camps.
The Lumber River is his line of de-
fence from the railway. The swamps
around Moss Neck are the scenes of its
boldest assassinations. The house of
Henry Berry Lowery, the leader, is
bi'yond Back Swamp, five miles from
Moss Neck station, and covered in the
rear by Ashpole and Aaron Swamps,
and all Scuffletown is his political ally
and " boozing ken,"

The operations directed against him
start from Lumberton on the east and
Shoe Heel on the west, twenty-one miles
apart, and each twelve miles from his
fastness. Further in his rear, on the
South Carolina side, the Little P^dee
as well, send up parallels of swamp.
Florence, a great prison pen for federal
troops in the war is fifty miles behind
him.

THE SVVA^rr OUTLAWS.

A3 old Aunt Phoebe said to me at
Shoe Heel.

" Boss, Henry Berry Lovvery is de
king o' tlie country "

SCUFFLETOWN AS A DEFENSIVE
TRACT.

The free negroes settled upon the
SoulTletown tract because the poverty of
the soil and the half inundated condition
of the reiiion brought it within their
means and debarred it from the capacity
of white men.

In wot weather, after rains, when
the Lumber River and its tributaries
rise, this region is almost flooded,
and then the only means of iuter-commu-
iiication are small paths, known only to
the inhabitants, which connect the island-
like patches and afford a labyrinthian,
mazes for escape to any who keep the
clues.

The Lumber River has bridges at but
one or two ])oints, and, being swift and
deep, must be crossed by scows or
rafts.

Jn summer a luxuriant undergrowth
covers all the swamps and low places,
and even the prairie pine land, so that
one cainiot see his own length, while in
winter the streams are full of water and
the Swamps more extensive.

The gall berry tree, sweet gums, post
oak, hickory, cypress and all the pine
varieties, grow in the swamps and on
their margins, and the bamboo vine,
stretching out eccentrically and profli-
gately, makes a nearly impenetrable
abatis.

The serpents are numerous and often
dangerous, including every variety of
the moccasin, the rattlesnake and the
largest specimens of water and black
snakes known in temperate regions.

Lizards live in the decaying logs, and
snapping turtles appear in the pools,
creeks and bays.

The woods are plentifully supplied
with wild cats, which kill pigs and lambs;
and the silence of the niglit in the rep-
tilian region is broken by the great ill-
omened owl, which utters no mere " tu-
whil," but appals the silence with his
long fo: eboding note, like the ver\«
demon of the woods mourning for prey.

A TOUR OF SCUFFLETOWN.

The stranger who expects to see in
Seulfletown any approach to a munici-
pal settlement will be disappointed.

It is the name of a tract of several
miles, covered at wide intervals with
hills and log cabins of the rudest and
simplest construction, sometime a half
dozen of these huts being proxinjate.

Two or three places to sell a low
character of spirits exist where the
dwellings are densest. The people have
few or no horses, but often keep a kind
of stunted ox to haul their short, ricketty
carts, and a man with such a bovine
hubin and a pair of old wheels is esteem-
ed rich; yet, living upon such land and
for so many years, the mulatoes of
Scuflletown would have esteemed them-
selves well to do had they enjoyed any
security from their white neighbors.
Tiiey had little more equity before a
jury than negroes, and it was no great
ofl^ence to violate their asylums and
court their wives and daughters.

The whole Lowery war afterward
began with Brant Harris' keeping in a
sort of servile concubinage some girls
courted by the Lowery s.

To visit a Scuflletosvn shanty, repre-
sentative of the whole, is to pass by a
cow lane or foot track up through a
thicket and suddenly come upon a half-
cleared fifld of old pine and post oak,
enclosed by a worm fence without a
gate.

A little old lever-well of the crudest

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

mechanism — seldom of the dignity and
proportions of a pole well— stands in
this lot, the male proprietor of which is
sitang on the worm fence, and he replies
to youp neighborly salutation without
changing his position. ^

Advancing, to the cabm it is found
built of hewn logs, morticed at the ends
the chinks stopped with mud, the
chimney built against one gable on the
outside, of logs and clay, with sticks and
clay fibove, where it narrows to the
smoko hole.

There is beside the large chimney
place, a half barrel, sawed off, to make
lye from the wood ashes, and the other
half of the barrel is seen to serve the
uses of a washtub.

A mongrel dog is always a feature of
1 10 establishment. The two or three
acres of the lot are generally ploughed
and planted in potatoes or maize, both
of which come up sickly.

The yellow woman commonly has a
baby at the breast, and from half a
dozen to a dozen playing outside on the
edges of the swamp.

The bed is m.ade on the floor ; there
are two or three stools ; only one apart-
ment comprising the whole establish-
ment.

LOWERT'S CABIN.

Just such a place as the above is the
house of Henry Berry Lovvery, the out-
law chief, except that, being a carpenter
he has nailed weather strips over the
iufcersiices between the logs and made
himself a sort of bedstead and some
chairs.

His cabin has two doors, opposite
each other, in the sides, and it has been
so many times shot through and through
with rifle balls that his wife can now
stand fire as well as her husband.

The Scuffletowners go out to work as

ditchers for the neighboring farmers,
who pay them the magnanimous wages
of $G a month.

As many of them arrf intemperate a
neijjhborin": trader with a barrel of
molasses and a barrel of rum speedily
gets the $6 from the whole party.

The above picture while true of the
majority of the ScufRetowners. is not
justly descriptive of all.

The Oxendines are all w.ell to ao, or
were before this bloody fend began, and
the Lowerys were industrious carpen-
ters, whose handiwork is seen at Lum-
berton, Shoe Heel and all round that
region

Great crimes in Scuffletown were rare
before the war.

Petty stealing and pilfering of chick-
ens and an occasional pig were not un-
known.

The whites hated the settlement
because it was a bad example to the
negroes. But most of the people were
Baptists or Methodists, and nearly all
owned their homesteads.

RISE OF SCUFFLETOWN.

By the census of 1860 Robeson county
contained 8,459 whites, only three free
blacks, all males, and the extraordinary
number of 1, 459 free mulattoes.
There were only 113 foreigners.

But one county — Halifox — contained
so many free mulattoes, and that was the
county whence the grandfather of the
present outlaws of Robeson emigrated.

In 1860 there were 2,165 mulattoes
and 287 free blacks in Halifax. Wake
county had next below Robeson 1,196
mulattoes, and after Hertford county,
with 1,020. There were no counties in
all the State with more than a few hun-
dred ; the average was not above fifty
to each county.

At the same time Robeson county had
126 slave mulattoes and 5,329 slave

THE SWAMF OUTLAWS.

ADVANCE OF THE TROOPS INTO THE SWAMPS.

blacks. Altogether the county contain-
ed 15,489 souls, the free population
making alincst two-thirds.

It stood considerably above the aver-
age counties of the State in slaves aiid
population, and out of the full-blooded
Indians (1.158 in number) ascribed to
North Carolina, none were set down
either to Robeson or Halifax county.

The antiquity of these free negro set-
tlements might be inferred from the
fact that by the census of 1850 only two
slaves were manumitted that year. In
1860 there were manumitted 258, or
one out of every 1,283.

In the latter year there were 5,202

fugitives from North Carolina to 17,501
from South Carolina.

Where did the South Carolina fugi-
tives hide 'J

Perhaps no inconsiderable portion of
ihein sought the swamp counties on the
southern tier of Norih Car(jlina, and
begged the cliai-ity of this lai-ge fi ce ne-
cro settlement.

THE INDIAN RACE OF THE LOWERYS.

The question ensues, whence came the
Indian blood of the Lowervs ? who are
by general assertion and belief partly of
Indian origin.

Why should they and their blood
>relative3 show Indian traces while Scuffle-

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

town at large is mainly plain, unioinau-
tic mulatto 1

ThoJ-e wei-f two sets of aboriginese in
Nortn Carolina — the Cherokees of the
west, mountainous Cirolina, who re-
moved at a comparatively i-ocent period
to the Indian Territory and of whom
several remnants remain in the extreme
western corner or pocket of the State,
numbering 1,0G2 in Jackson county
alone.

Jud^e Leech, of Lumberton, says th.it
he saw a Cherokee once who resembled
Patrick Lnwery so closely that he called
out, " Is that Patrick ?"

Besides the Cherokees there was the
Atlantic coast confederacy, led by the
Tuscaroras and abetted at the great mas-
sacre of 1711 by the Hatteras Indians,
the Pamilicos and the Cothechneys.

These Indians, after adetermin-ed resis-
tance to the whites, which resulted in
scaring the Bai-on de Gi-aflT, the Swiss
founder of Newbern, out of the New
World, accepted a reservation of lands
in Halifax and Bertie counties, near ihe
Roanoke R.ver.

Tiiey eiiiii^iaied to New York and
joined the Five Nati(.ns a few years af-
terward, being thought worthy in prow-
ess to be admitted to that proud con-
federacy, but they held the fee simple
of their lands in North Carolina until
after the year 1840.

Some persons of the tribe must have
remained behind to look after thftse
lands, and among these, as will be seen
hereafter, was the grandfather of the

Lowerys.

The pride of character of the Tusc;:-
roras was such that the Cheroke. s,
Creeks, and other tribes joined the
whites to subjugate them, and Parkmai:
says that the Tuscaroras were of the
same generic stock with the Iroquois
• and conducted th-^ southern campaigns
of those Five Nations.

Ilildreth says that they w?re reputed
to be remnants of two Virginia tribes,
the Manakins and iSIanaho* s, iiereditaiy
enemies of Captain John Smith's Pow-
hatan.

They burned the Surveyor General,
who had trespassed on their lands, at
the stake, and were in turn partly sub-
jected to slavery by the militia <;f South
Cai'olina. Eiiiht hundred of them vvere
sold by their Indian enemies to the whites
oi' ihe Carolinas at on3 time, and in 17 iS
most of those at liberty retired through
the unsettled portions of Virginia and
Pennsylvania to Lake Oneida, New
York.

This criminal code, enforced against
Allan Lowery, the father of Henry-
Berry Lovvery, the outlaw, has had the
result of making Robeson county the
seat of a fierce wai'fare for revenge.

Persons curious about the severity of
this code may see a digest of it in Hild-
reth, Colonial, series, vol. II., pp. 271 —
275.

The Tuscaroras, in their prime, had
1,200 warriors in North Carolina.

In l807 they bought a tract from the
Holland Land Company with the pro-
ceeds of their North Carolina lands,
and it was about at this period that th'-*
ancestor of the Lowerys removed from
Halifax county t > Robeson county.

THE LOWERYS SETTLE IN ROBESON.

The following statement of the origin
of the family is derived from the note-
books of Colonel F. M, Wishart, which
were entrusted to me to look at by
Captain F. H. M. Kenney, of Shoe
Heel :—

James Lowery, the grandfather of H.
B. Lowery, came from Halifax, N. C,
and settled at what is called Harper's
Ferry (in the centre of Scuffletown,
two miles from Ruhr's store), bnilt a
bri(J^e across Drowning Ci'eek, and

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

kept it as a toll bridge; also kept a j spirits recoiled from -.vorking on the

public house for the accomodation of
travellers.

He was wealthy and fairlv "esoected
by all, and owned slaves.

lie married a Moman by tne name of

, and had three sons, George

Travis Lowery, Allen Lowerv and Tho-
mas Lowery.

Allen Lowery, the father of the band
leader, married a woman by the name
of Mary Combes and settled on the
south side of Back Swamp, in a desert-
looking wilderness, and was the father
of Patrick, Purdio, Andiew, Sinclair,
William, Thomas, Stephen, Calvin,
. Henry Berry and Mary.

Old Allen Lowery was a good, peacea-
ble citizen, and well liked.

He was a great hunter in his vounfi
days. With his neighbors — Barnes, Mc-
Nuir, Moore and others — he was willinir
to share his last cent. All his boys
were mechanics with him, and the fini-
ily got on smoothly and industriously
until the summer of 1864, when three
'' Yankee " prisoners escaped amon"
many from the pen at Florence, S. C.

They made their way to the house of
Allen Lowery aud were comparatively
safe, as nearly all the white people were
in the Confederate arrny and the State
laws would not allow the niulattoes to
enlist in the ranks.

The Scufflt'tosvners'Were mustered in
only as cooks, <kc., or conscripted to
woik on the brestworks about Wilm-
ington. /

There is a story current that the Low-
erys in tne Revolutionary War were
torv bush whackers, but it is also allc"--
ed that one of the family received a
United States pension up to the day he
died. Some of the boys were willing
to enter the Confederate army ; as their
father had kept slaves, but their proud

fortifications among the netrroes.

As the war progressed and ihe Low.
erys got to understand it ihey Sympa-
thized with the North, and entertained
at their cabins its escaped soldiery iroin
Florence.

A DEMOCRAT'S ADMISSION.

Mr. Bruce Butler, an larn' st democrat
and a prominent lawyer in Wilmington,
said, in reply to an interrogatory : —

" [ don't think politics has anything to
do with this outbreak. It began in the
war, when our impressing officers made
a requisition upon the free negro settle-
ment and pulled away these outlaws or
their relatives to work on our fortifica-
tions. They complained of the fooil
the treatment, the woi-k, and so forth,
and, I believe, the chief outlaw himself
ran away. Then there was hunting
made for him and he got to lying out in
the woods and swamps; next to stealing,
next robbery. Murder and outlawry
followed in time — bad begun grew worse
— that's mv understandiufr of it. "

OLD ALLEN LOWERY

One evening at Lumberton I sat in
the office of Judge Leech, half a dozen
gentleman present, and they described
old Allen Lowery. The disposition
generally manifested by the white peo-
ple of Robeson county is to put little
stress upon the murder of this old man,
but to ascribe the crimes of Henry Berry
Lowery's band to lighter cause and to
separate the motive of revenge altogether
from his offences.

"The L 'werys," said one of the per-
sons present, "were always savage and
predatory. By conducting a sort of
swamp or guerilla war during the Revfv
lution thev accumulated considerable
property, and at the close of that war

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

were landholders, slaveholders and
people of the soil. Then they grew dis-
sipated duiing the time of peace, and
their land was levied upon to pay debts-
Being Indians, with an idea that their
ancestors held all this land in fee
simple, they could not understand how
it could be taken from them, and for
years they looked upon society as hav-
ing robbed them of their patrimony."

"Yes," said one present, "Allen
Lowery brought me a case against a
man who wished to sell a piece of pro-
perty he had forniely owned, and he
couldn't be made to understand that the
man had a good title for it. When
they were holding the examination, just
before they shot him in 18G5 the old
man pleaded in exleniiation of the plun-
der found in his house that he had never
been given fair play but had been cheat-
ed out of his land. He said that his
grandfather had been cut across the hand
in the Revolution, fijjhting for the State,
and that the State had cheated all his
family. He had the Indian sentiment
deep in him, of having suffered wrong
and imparted it to all his sons. Here
is Sink (Sinclair) Lowery with the
.same kind of notions to this day. He
said a little while ago, ' We used to
own all the country round here, but it
was taken from us somehow.' "

" He was a good carpenter," said
another, " and brought all his boys up in
industriously. He built this office in
which we sit. He had a peculiar kind
of eyes ; they would prowl around your
face until you got off your guard and
Mien he would give you a piercing look
through and through. He had a heap
of mixed white and Indian pride, but 1
believe he was whipped at the whipping
post once for pilfering, but that was so
far back in his youth that nobody re-
membered it except by tradition. His
sou, Sinclair, married a white woinac.

jThe Lowerys and Oxendlnes were gen-
erally accounted the highest families in
Scutrletown."

" Well," chimed in another voice, " he
was considerable of a heathen and never
went much to church except very late in
life, when he became a Methodist class-
leader. Old Allen married a girl early
in life and had one child, but being in-
different or disappoinied about her, he
wandered off two years to South Caro-
lina, and when he returned, without di-
vorce or notice of any sort, he married
a different woman.

"Taking example from him the first
wife also married a new man. By the
second wife old Allen Lowery had all
these children. Nobody ever had any
complaint to make of him or his boys
until the murder of Barnes, eight years

ago.

THE FIRST MURDER.
Henry Berry Lowery grew up with
his fjither, a carpenter and a liunter.

He was noticed to be a boy of good
appearance, quiet address, pleasing and
modest enough, but also to cherish deep
resentments and to readily take affront.
His eyes had iiidden in them, a-nd prompt
to come forth on provocation, the hazel
Indian lights, and when he was ordered
to the sand pits, below Wilmington, to
do laborer's duty, at the age of seven-
teen, he ran away, and returned to
ScufHetown, where he was repeatedly
hunted, and by none more than by John
A. Barnes, his flither's next neighbor,
and by J. A. Brant Harris, a white man
of bad character, who domineered over
Scnffletown.

He remained for many months be
tween the swamps and the shanties_ and
was joined by Steve Lowery and other
relatives and acquaintances.

Unable to work for a living under
these conditions, the party had to forage
upon the whites.

THE swa:\ip outlaws.

Thus, inssensibly, formed vagabond
and desperate habits, in whicli, there is
reason to believe, they found apt tutors
in some escaped Union prisoners wi'o
had made their way from Florence, S.
C, by the light of the North Star,
straight into Sciifiletown, and who, to
avoid capture, hiJ in Baelc and Lumber
Swamps with the young Lowerys,
Strongs and Oxendiiies.

Bloody example, the self-reliance of
an outcast and distaste for peaceful
pursuits soon overcame Henry Berry
Lowery, and he grew to hate the slave-
holders and to identify himself ideally
with the wrongs of all the mulatto
settlement.

BRANT HARRIS.

This fellow was a bluff, swaggering,
cursing, redfiiced bully, entrusted by
the rebel county authorities with keep-
ing the peace in ScufflL'town anl hunt-
ing up deserters and conscripts, and he
meantime gained a penny by "farming
a turpentine orchard," selling rum, &c.

He looked like a slave dealer, and
was the terror of the poor wretches of
Scuffl' town, whom he used to flog, un-
roof and insult at will.

Being a libidinous wretch he took
possession of some of the lightest dams-
els in the settlement, and one of these
was courted honorably by a cousin of
young Henry Berry Lowery.

Seeing the white man so much at the
hut of his girl one of the young Lowerys
threatened among his people to kill
Brant Harris if he did not let her alone.

Tliis being reported to Harris he was
seized either with apprehension or rage,
knowin.:-, perhaps, the Indian Qualities
of the Lowery lads.

He therefore put himself in ambush
to kill the lad who threatened him, but
by mistake shot the wrong Lowery, the
brother of the boy he hunted.

This mistake made Brant Harris
aware that his present peril was greater
than before, for he had now nfised the
savajie ire of all the Lowervs and their
Indian kin.

He therefore seized both the broth-
ers of liis victim as persons who owed
military service on the fortifications ot
Wilmington, and was deputed to march
them from Scuffletown to Lnmberton.

On the way this monster deliberately
murdered both boys, and one of the
three, at least, was found wi.th his skull
beaten in by a bludgeon.

A fourth brother made his escape to
the Lowerys and joined Henry Berry
Lowery, who vowed to kill Brant Har-
ris at sight.

The foregoing is thus ingeniously
paraphrased by Colonel Wishart in his
book said to be designed for publica-
tion, part of which, in manuscript, I had
the privilege of examining:

" A man by the name of Brant Har-
ris, who had been a sutler and turpen-
tine merchant at Red Banks, had a dis-
pute with the Lowerys (charged to be
about stolen chickens) and he finally
killed three cousins of Henry Berry
Lowery named Jarman, George and
Bill." '

Now, there is no record that the
Lowerys in question were not as re
spectable as Brant Harris, and it was
several years before Henry Berry Low-
ery's victims amounted to three.

Brant Harris weighed 230 pounds.

His character may be inferred from
the fiict that some of the females of his
surviving family have given birth to
mulatto children.

THE MURDER OF BARNES.

Before the fugatives in the woods
and kinsmen of the Lowerys had dealt
out retribution to Brant Harris the
family of Allen Lowery had become

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS

embrfiilcd with thpir nearest neighbor,
a bacliclor named John A. Barnes.
This Barnes was a fine hunter and
could track the fugitives with his prac-
tised eye through the swamps, so that
he was an obstacle to them as well
as an enemy.

The following is Captain Wishart's
version of this assassination, the first
in point of time committed by Low-
ery's band : —

After the escaped prisoners from
Florence reached the Suffletown district
they made the acquaintance and sought
the hospitality of Allen Lowery's fam-
ily.

Henry Berry, Stephen and William
Lowery, wishing to give their new
friends good table fare, went to the
neighboring farm of Mr. Barnes, their
oldest acquaintance, and stole two of
his best hogs, two miles distant, caried
them home and salted them nicely
away for long consumption.

Barnes followed the cart track to
Allen Lowery's house, saw the remains
of the butchering and cleaning, and,
getting out an officer and a search
warrant, swore to his mark on the
ears of the hogs, as found on the re-
jected heads among the offar.

The three young Lowery's — Henry,
Steve and Bill — were nowhere to be
found.

Barnes requested old man Lowery
and all his boys henceforth to keep on
his land or he should help to forward
them to the batteries to work involun-
tarily.

' Here the struggle commenced and
threats passed and repassed.

Oil the 12th dav of December, 1S64 ,

•> 7 7

while James P. Barnes was going to
Clay Valley Post Office, a distance of
one mile (the Post Office at the store of
Cantaiu W. P. Mores), he was waylaid

half way by IL B. Lowery, Bill Lowery
and (as supposed or charged) by the
Yankees and shot.

He fell with twenty buckshot in his
breast and side, and then Henry Berry
Lowery deliberately walked up to him
with a shotgun, and although Barnes
cried, " Don*t shoot me aixain — I am a
dying man," the young mulatto Indian,
then not more than sixteen or seventeen
years of age, replied :

" You are the man who swore to shoot
me," and fired another load into liis face,
shooting off part of the cheek.

The whole party then crept into the
swamp and disappeared.

Some of the neitrhbors, hearing the
shooting and hallooing, hunied up r.iid
heard the dying statement of Barnes that
Henry Berry Lowery was his murderer.

THE FIRST BURGLARY.

Soon afterward these young men went
to the house of W^idow MacNair, for
the purpose of robbing a confederate
colonel.

The sick soldier there lent his pistol
to the widow, who wounded one of the
robbers, and they carried him off to
Colonel Drake's, some distance away,
and ordered Widow Nash, the only per-
son in the house, to attend to him till
well, on pain of death. The man re-
covered in perfect secrecy.

THE SECOND VICTIM.

It now became Brant Harris' turn.

The young Tuscarora who had taken
the first life without a shudder— and
that the life of a man 'generally reputed
to be a good neighbor and useful man —
built himself a " blind," or curtain of
brush and old logs ; and as Brant Har-
ris rode by m his buggy, near Bute's
store, in the early part of 1865, he was
riddled with buckshot,

THE SWAMP OUTLA\YS.

His horse ran away, and carried him
a considerable distance.

Few people sympathized with Har-
ris, although all were now aware of the
existence of a savage band of outlaws in
the swamps, who resisted and baffled all
means to bring them in.

Before any efficient means could be
adopted to arrest young Lowery and
his brothers and associates in the in-
tricacies of Back Swamp the army of
General Sherman, making the grand
march, swept on by Cheraw and Rock-
ingham to Fayetteville, and the fora-
gers or " bummers," who strayed out
on the flanks, pounced upon Robeson
county.

ALLEN LOWERY'S OFFENCE.

At Scufiletowii they found in tlie
Lowery's guides, informants and enter-
tainers, who posted them as to the sta-
tus of the leading rebels of the county,
the wealthiest homesteads and such
other matters as a rapacious soldiery
would wi.sh to know.

Some of tlie Lowery boys went out
with these troops and brought home
part of the spoils.

At this period an execution had been
levied on old Allen Lowery, and his
son Bill, at law, proprietor of the house
and ground where the old man and his
wife resided. Bill had probably had
association with that part of the family
whicn had fled to the swamps, but there
13 poor testimony that old Allen h:id
ever committed any robberies. His
son William, the new master of the
place, governed the old man, who was
now sixty-fi\e years of age.

DEATH OF THE OUTLAW'S FATHER.

When Sherman's army had passed
on to Fayetteville and Raleigh the ma-
lignant rage of the people of Robeson

county turned upon this old citizen and
the helpless part of his family.

They little knew what a young de-
mon they were to arouse for seven en-
suing years in the wild boy who resided
in the swamps, and whose motto was to
be " Blood for blood ! "

They resolved that the Lowery's
were then committed adherents of the
Yankees, that the blood of Barnes and
Harris was unaccounted for, and that it
was necessary to muke an example of
somebody iu Scufflctown to teach them
that the end of slavery was not yet the
colored man's triumph.

Blind, inconsiderate, brutal ill-will
and cruelty were at the bottom of this
movement.

It started between Floral College and
what is now called Shoe Heel.

A member of the gang was a Presby-
terian preacher named Coble, or Cobill,
an old apostle, exhorter and Phi/risee of
slavery, and one of the leaders in it
was Murdoch Mac Lain, who, six years
afterward, tumbled out of his buggy,
shot through and through by Henry
Berry Lowery.

These, among twenty others, marched
j upon old Allen Lowery's cabin, and
dragged out the old man and his wife,
and two of the sons, found on the prem-
ises, Sinclair and Bill.

Searching the cabin they fouiid sev-
eral articles said to have been filched

! from the white neiirhbors. This vrtis

justification enough.

They carried the old people off to a
; safe nook and there went through the

farce of examining them.
1 The devil's own prirst— Coble or C<v
' bill — got a prayer ready to make at the
' execution, and to make his holy rob

hypocritieally consistent, he pleaded for

the life of Sinclair Lowery.
' The negroes say these white Ku KluJt

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

made the condemned people of the fam
ily dig their own graves.

They stood the old man, at sixty-five
years of age, up beside his son, both of
them enduring the ordeal with Indian
stoicism, and, by the light of blazing
torches, as one account relates, shot them
to deatii with duck shot and ball.

Coble or Cobill got off his prayer and
perhaps his gun. Before they shot the
father and son they endeavored, with
blanced fear of the vengeance of the
North, to mai<e the poor old wife of AI-
len Lowery confess to some justification
for their act by pointing their pieces at
her and firing volleys over her head un-
til she was nearly paralyzed with fear.

From a thicket near at hand Henry
Berry, the son of Allen Lowery, saw the
volley fired which laid his brother and
father bleeding on the ground.

There he swore eternal vengeance
ao-ainst the perpetrators of the act.

Fourteen citizens have paid part of
that penalty in the succeeding seven
years.

He has been the greatest scourge the
South ever knew from one of the inferior
race, and has developed a cunning, blood-
thirstiness, activity and courage unmatch-

ed in the history of his race. Some
have compared him with Nat Turner.

HENRY BERRY LOWERY AND NAT

TURNER.

The insurrection of Nat Turner tO()k
place in Southampton county, Virginia,
August, 1831, just over the line from
Halifax county. North Carolina, where
the grandfather of the Lowerys lived.

In Southampton county, as in Halifax,
abode Indians, a few of whom still re-
main — the Nottowavs.

Nat Turner was the senior of Henry
Berry Lowery, and was thirty-one years
of age and a slave.

He was a praying ignoramous and
believed himself inspired to kill off the
whites, which he commenced, with four
disciples, by killing fifty-five men, women
and children,

Tiie insurrection lasted only two days
and after hiding several weeks the leader
was caught and hanged.

Henry Berry Lowery has never been
caught and held. He is a bloodthirstv
remoseless, able bandit leader.

In my next letter I shall take up the
catalogue of his crimes.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

THE BANDIT IN JAIL.

KOllTII CAROmV OSCEOLA,

Further Murders by the Liowery Out-
laws. A Coiiipiirison. Alive or
Dead. ni.e:li Rewards for tlie Cap-
ture or Killing of the Bandit?. Tiiril-
ling Stories of the Swamp War.
Cold-hlooded Assassinations. Sudden
Murders, Cool Robberies, Ruthless
Retaliation and Footpad Generosity.
The Feud with the M'Neills. The
Fight. Lowery's Wonderful Escape
and Deadly Stratagem. Fearful
Death of Sanders, tlieSpy. Tortured
lor Three Days, Bruised, Bled, Poi-
soned, and Finally Shot. Romance
Outdone by Facts. How the Suc-
cess ot the Gang Demoralizes Young
ScutHetown. The State Powerless.

Wilmington, N. C. March 2, 1872.
Since my return and rest in this city

1 have seen the report of the Ku Klux
Committee, which is, in general, con-
firmatory of the information I have sent
you from personal investigation, analy-
sis and belief.

The astounding feature of the Lowery
band is that they have so long baffled
detection and paralyzed the public spirit
and citizen resistance of Carolina. Liv-
ing upon the border of the North State,
they have passed, in their excesses, the
boundary line, and some of the murders
have been done almost within hearing of
South Carolina.

Yet, when the State proposed a vig-
orous campaign against them, and the

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

militia and volunteers were companies
of regular United States troops were
finally withdrawn because an equal num-
ber of citizens would not operate with
them-. Adjutant General Gorham stig-
matized th(j militia in a newspaper let-
ter, and suid that the regulars, men and
iillioers, obeyed orders and showed cool
professional pluck.

This campaign was made at the worst
season of the year, the heat and miasma
rising and the vvoods and swamps cov-
ered with thick, concealing vegetation.

Twenty-eight volunteers enlisted for
this ignominious campaign under Cap-
ttiin Wishart, " the flower of the coun-
try," most of them grown to active
years since the close of the rebellion.

They were spruce young fellows, fond
of a drink and a spree, and I am enab-
led to present some picture of them
from Captain Wishart's diary.

A GLIMPSE OF THE SWAMP WAR.
Thus run f >ur of Wishart's excerpts: —

Saturday, August 5. — Militia ordered
to Lumberton ; a pretty sight ! Ne-
groes, mulattoes, whites — all drunk,
without arms, ammunition or anything,
only money enough to get whiskey.

Later, in August. — Two of my men
drunk ; one lost his boots, one his pistol
* * and the pilot was drunk * * The
red bugs and yellow flies would kill an
elephaiit * *.

Saturday, October 29, 187L — Henry
Berry, Steve, Andrew and Boss were
at Bear Swamp Academy to-day at pub-
lic speaking on educational purposes.
All had two double-barrelled shotguns
apiece. They captured old J. P. Sin-
clair, who outlawed them.

Later in the Hunt, — Andrew Strong
was seen Saturday, October — , at — ,
Complained of being nearly worn out.

THE LOWERYS AND THE FLORIDA
SEMINOLES.

; As there is a cry for United Statea
interference in the Lowery war, it may
be timely to advert to a war held in a

I similar country in the era of Jackson

' and Van Buren.

THE SEMINOLES

were originally Creeks from Georgia.

They numbered in Florida, 1594
men, and of all sexes and ages 3899,
exclusive of 150 negro men, escaped
slaves.

To subdue these Seminoles took a
campaign of five years and cost $19,
500,000, besides the pay of the regular
army and losses sustained by settlers
from Indian ravages.

Above twenty thousand volunteers
were called out.

Osceola, the Seminole brave most dis-
tinguished, was thirty-two years of age
when- the war broke out; Nat Turner
was thirty-one; Henry Berry Lowery
was eighteen.

O-ceola was half white, and his Enir-
lish name was Powell, the same with
the Florida assassin tif Secretary
Seward, who was I'emarked to resemble
an Indian when he was hanged as Wash-
ing to, in 1865.

The Seminoles brought into the field
1,060 Indians and 250 arms-beai'in<r
negroes.

Persons familiar with the Florida war
trace resemblances between Henry
Berry Lowery and the Seminole chief
called Coacooche, or Wild Cat.

Both young men, they made war a
predatory pastime, grew merry with ex-
citement, were cruelly active, and they
both ridiculed and laughed at the
soldiery floundering in the mud and
water to overtaken them.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

ATTITUDE OF THE CAROLINA NEGROES
TOWARD THE OUTLAWS.

In passive allies the Lowerys are
nearly as well befriended as the Semi-
noles, for all ScufHetown wishes them at
least no ill.

When the troops pursued the scoun-
drels they could hear a peculiar baric
like that of a cur precede them, and die
away in the distance, the mulatto's war-
ning note passed from shanty to shanty
to put Lowery on the qui vive.

If soldiery or armed men are on the
railway train a movi ment among the
negro train hands will be observed as
the locomotive approaches the stations
of Scuffletown.

What happens in Wilmington to-
night will be in the knowledge of the
outlaws within fifteen hours.

It is this prescient, omniscient, unac-
eountable apprehension and intelligence
of the Lowery which has stricken the
community infested with a dumb terror.

The negroes generally in the State
show adherence to these colored mur-
derers.

The Legislature passed a bill, ratified
by the Governor February 8, 1872,
offering a reward of $10,000 for Henry
Berry Lowery, and $5,000 for each of
the following men : — Stephen Lowery,
Boss Strong, Andrew Strong, George
Applewhite and Thomas Lowery.

It was proclaimed as follows : —
Now, therefore, I, Tod R. Caldwell,
Governor of the State of North Caro-
lina, by virtue of the authority in me
vested by said act above recited, do
issue this my proclamation offering the
following rewards in addition to those
heretofore offered to be paid in currencv
to the party or parties who shall ap-
prehend and deliver, dead or alive, any
of the outlaws hereinafter named to the
Sheriff of Robeson county.

This reward, in addition to a small
reward offered previously by the State
and another by the county, brings the
price of the band up to about seventy-
Hve thousand dollars. The attitude of

THE BLACK LEGISLATORS

was ominious. When the question
came up of offering an enlarged reward
for these outlaws several republicans,
chiefly black members, voted against it.
It finally passed by 7-4 to l8. Caw-
thorn, colored, and Fletcher, colored,
made speeches advocating it.

Mills proposed to increase the reward
even more, which Mabson, colored op-
posed.

Page, colored, offered an amendment
to the effect that the reward was to
be considered open for thirty days, and
meantime the outlaws be permitted to
leave the State. This was rejected.
The yeas and nays were called.
The following persons, among others,
about half of whom were colored, voted
against offering the rewards : — Bryan,
Burns, Carson, Hargrove, Ileeton,
Johnston, Marler, Page, Smith, Reaves
and York.

This excerpt shows that Lowery 's
popularity is not confined to the negroes
of Robeson county, but is considerable
throughout the State,

He interrupted an educational meet-
ing some time ago with his whole armed
band, and demanded the proceedings of
the Legislature to be read.

The State Adjutant General, Gorham,
stigmatized the Scuffletonians in his
report as deceitful and in collusion with
the Lowerys.

AFRICAN CHARMS FOR THE BAND.

The superstition of this ganef of out-
laws has been suggested as a mode of
aflriphting them.

When Henderson Oxendine was

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

handed there were found in his coat
pockets ;i piece of human bone, appar-
ently taken from tlie human hand,
and a quantity of mixed herbs.

Beinnr interroirated as to whether ,
their many bloody deeds had not given I
the surviving bandits visions of ghosts i
and fears of being haunted by their
dead, the wife of one of them con-
fessed that, alttiough never hesitating
in determination, both Henry Berry
and Tom Lowery and Andrew Strong
were often blue and mentally uneasy. I

At this the county newspaper ofj
Robeson — a very complete and spright-
ly local paper, edited by a clergyman
named McDiermid — printed a local i
about the discovery of spiritual artil-
lery, baneful drugs, witchcraft, «&c., in-
tended to be read by the Loweiys, and
to fill them with apprehension.

These outlaws take the nev/spapers
daily, and some time ago, in hunting
over the deserted shanty of Lowery, a
copy of the Robesonian was found, with
the endorsement torn from the wrapper,
and then carrried to the publishing of-
fice and the address was there identified.

The person implicated confessed that
Henry Berry Lowery gave him the
money and ordered him to subscribe
vicariously

WHERE DO THEY GET ARMS ?

The Lowerys probably procure their
improved arms — the breechloaders
especially — through some of tlie more
avaricious country merchants, and are
made to pay heavy rates with the
money they have got by robbery.

They have depleted the whole region
round Scuffletown of guns and pistols.

In one case a white family slept on
tlieir arms and walked with them con-
tinually; but one Sunday, releasing
vigilance, left their guns for a few j

moments on the piazza, when the Low-
ery band, lying in watch, rushed up
between them and their arras and
drove the men to the woods.

INCIDENTS OF OUTLAWRY.

April 29, 1871. Henry B. Lowery
and Buss Strons went to a house in
Richmond county and took two mules
and a wagon out of a citizen's barn,
filled the wagon with corn and drove in
style to Seufllotown, where the corn
was equally distributed.

Having no use for horses and vehi-
cles they returned the team the same
day to the owner.

May 3, 1871, Henry B. and Steve
Lowery and Boss and Andrew Strong
went on a robbing excursion to the
house of Mr. Parnell, near Sciiffletown.

The males of the family fled to the
woods, the females were bolted away
in a retired apartment, and the house
despoiled.

The bandits waited all night tor the
males to come home, and threatened to
kill them if they inopportunely arrived.

One day in October, 1871, a Mr.
McNeill was out in the woods hunting
coons with a fine dog which belonged
to him.

As the darkness came on he heard
what seemed to be human footsteps
around the tree he was watching.

Filled with the superstition of Low-
ery's band he made haste to get home.

Next morning, sure enough, as he sat
at Monbeck station, Henry Berrv Low
ery appeared, armed like a pirate,
double-barrelled shot gun, Spencer car-
bine and five revolvers in his belt, but
cool as a cucumber.

He had a dead coon over his shoul-
der.

" Mr. McNeill," he said, " as your
dog treed this coon, I thought it no

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

more than right to bring it to you. I
wish vou would lend me that donj to
cocn a little on my own account "

" No," said McNeill, " 1 can't .spare
that dog, but 1 have got another one at
home which I might lend you."

" Oh," cried Lowery, *' never mind.
I cuess I can cot along without it."
And he walked off as demurely as any
honest neighbor. To show this outlaws
fearlessness, it may be instanced that
when he went to the house of one
McKinsley, near Red Bank, he pulled
off his whole belt of arms and then
threw them down on the piazza while he
ordered the family to prepare him a
meal in a remote apartment and par-
cook of it there.

The leading white families remaining
in Souffletown are the McNeills, Ed.
Smith, Alex. Mclntyre, Nick and Wil-
liam Kelly, John McNair, and the Ty-
tiers.

The ablest leader against Lowery
has been J. Nicholas Maclain, who has
been obliged, nevertheless, to leave the
county and go to Georgia. He is a
lighl-complexioned man, sallow, wiry,
and beardless.

EDITORIAL COURAGE.

Mr. James, local editor of the Wilm-
ington Journal, received a letter from a
brother editor at Lumberton after the
safe robbery in February, IS? 2, to this
effect :—

All the able-bodied men in town have
gone west in pursuit of the outlaw. It
is needless to say that I start east by the
first train.

One Oxendine, commonly called Dick,
keeps a bar at Luinb('rtf>n, unable 1o
have any repose at Scuffletown.

His father was the " best-to-do" negro
In that settlement, and was for a time
County Commissioner, with a salary of
$3 a day.

The Lowerys have not always been a
peaceful family, even prior to the war
and it is related that John Quince Low-
ery killed a relative about 1858, and was
branded for it in the hand nl Lumber-
ton.

Several of these outlaws have been
acquitted before the Courts.

Applewhite was condemned, but broke
jail, as did Steve Lowery.

Tom Lowery was in Lumberton jail
when Henderson Oxendine was hanged
in the jail yard.

Applewhite had been a slave at Golds,
boro, and, although a blick man, he
married a nearly white Oxendine giil.

Andrew Strong married Henry Berry
Lowery 's sister, if I am correctly in
formed. Tom Lowery married a girl
of Scuffletown named Wilkins, and Steve
Lowery married an Oxendine.

THE DEATH OF APPLEWHITE.

It appears to be well established that
Applewhite is either dead or laid up
from serious wounds received in a com
bat with the militia, near Red Bank,
in October, 1870.

He was fired upon and pursued, and
the bloody tracks in the leaves and
bushes showed where he had stopped to
rest and supper.

His little daughter told the Sherifl
and posse that he had been hit in the
mouth, neck and breast and could not
articulate, and that he repeatedly f tinted^

His mulatto wife dressed iiis wounds
with spirits of turpentine, and the mis-
erable man had then to return to the
swamp.

Soon after this he was surrounded in
Lowery's cabin, and had to escape as
best he might by the aid of the band, io
the darkness before the dawn.

" IN THE SWAMPS
these outlaws live on little island-like

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

patches, burrowing under brush, and
at one place it was found that they had
constructed a commodious cabin.

They seldom move at night except
to do robberies, and take advantage
of the darkness to slip into the huts
of their relatives and befrienders.

LOWERY'ri CABIN.

The homo of Lowery is now deserted,
and its log walls and doors show the
marks of bullets, shot and balls fired
from the woods and swamps.

There are two doors on the sides,
opposite each other, and a trap was
at one time concealed in the floor, the
hinges hidden or mortised beneath.

This trap afforded admission to a
sort of mine or covered way, which
ran under the surface about sixty
yards to the swamp.

This passage way was filled up sev-
eral months ago, and the house is no
longer tenable by the bandits. Here
Lowery was surrounded in May, 1871,
by Sheriff MacMillan, George Wisehart
and a posse of nine in all, but, after
some exchange of shots, Lowery pulled
out a small false closet or buttery by
the chimney, acting as a concealed door,
and he crept off with his entire party,

THE FIGHT AT WIREGRASS LANDING.

A few months later than this, in the
autumn season, he performed an escape
of almost incredible audacity.

There were twenty-three soldiers at
a spot called Wiregrass Landing, and as
they looked up the narrow channel of
the Lumber River they saw Henry
Berry Lowery paddling a small, flat-
bottomed scow, his belt of arms un-
buckled and thrown in the bottom of
the boat.

Instantly the whole party opened
fire, when Lowery, with the agility of a

terrapin, threw himself into the water
on the remote side of the scow, tilted it
up like a floating parapet, and reaching
inside successfully for his weapons,
aimed and fired as ci>olly as if he were
at the head of his band on solid ground.
In this position he actually wounded
two of the men and put the whole posse
to flight. Sheriff AlacMillan vouches
for the literal truth of this statement.

A GENERAL JAIL DELIVERY.

Some of the jail breakings of this
party have been remarkable.

May 10, 1871, Henry Berry and four
other men suddenly appeared in Lum-
berton jail, where Tom Lowery and
Pop Oxendine were heavily ironed.

The rescuers bored with augers around
the staples of three doors, and also
bored around the irons fastened in the
floor, when all the party went forth
nonchalantly.

MURDER OF GILES INMAN.

Mr. Inman was needlessly killed
while bringing up reinforcements to
Sheriff, MacMillan.

Inman Avas a youth of eighteen or
twenty, and a resolute spirit to cleanse
the county of its marauders.

The Sheriff of the county had sur-
rounded Henry Berry Lowery's house
and had shown the white feather, with a
large part of his posse ; and therefore,
there was a steady cry for the reserves.
As in the ballad of Horatio,

Those behind cried, " Forward !"
And those in front cried, " Back."

Lowery, meantime, had secretly and
like a snake slipped out of his cabin,
and he panted for blood. Throwing
himself down in the bushes near the
path, only 500 yards from his house
where the white hunters lay in force, he
ordered his band to pick off the advanc-
ing party seriatim.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS. ^^

His own carbine brought down Giles MURDER OF HECTOR AMD A. T. MAC

NEILL AND WILLIAM BROWN.

Inmaa instantly.

At the same instant Roderick Thomp-
son, another volunteer, was mortally
wounded by Boss Strong, and Frank
MacCoy was badly wounded.

Inman's family is said to have been
republican in politics.

MURDER uF MURDOCH AND HUGH
MACI<AIN.

The murder of the two brothers, Mur-
doch and Hugh MacLain, was achieved
while they rode together along the pub-
lic road in an open buggy, and accom-
plished after long and cool deliberation.
They had several times approached
the dwelling of these young men, and
rattled chains and stirred up the domes-
tic fowls and animals, but Murdoch was
too prudent to come out.

He was a superb specimen of the self-
reliant, impulsive, military Southerner,
never capable of acknowledged merit in
a negro accompanied with humility, and
at the murder of Allen Lovvery by the
neighborhood he was second in com-
mand.

As he was riding along Henrv Berrv
Lowery from a "■ blind" at the roadside
and at close quarters snapped his gun.

Murdoch instantly reached for his
arms, which he carried with him perpet-
ually, but before he could bring it to his
shoulder he was riddled with buckshot,
and the horse started off at a gallop
with both brothers mortally wounded.

This murder has been the latest com-
mitted by the Lowery band, and its
purpose was solely revenge.

In killing MacLain Henry Berry Low-
ery shed the blood of one of the highest
youthful spirits in that region, but one
unfortunately, whose record against the
colored race was long and hard and
dark.

The murders of Hector MacNeill, A.
MacMillan and William Brown happen,
ed in the summer of 1870, within sight
of a large camp of troops and directly
upon the railroad track near Bure's sta-
tion.

It had been deemed sagacious to make
prisoner the wife of Henry Berry Low.
ery and to deposit her and her children
in Lumberton Jail as an accomplice of
the outlaw chief.

Filled with rage at this act Lowery
and his gang made their way rapidly
across the swampy country and, throw-
ing themselves down behind some decay-
ed railway tier, waited like panthers for
the soldiery u> appear.

They came leading the mulatto wo
man and her children, jocular and un-
suspecting.

Suddenly there was a series of re-
ports of firearms, and the three persons
named were down on the track moaning
in the anguish of mortal wounds.

The woman and children were left
standing on the track and the rest of
the escort party ran away more or less
injured with buckshot.

Berry Barnes was shot in the head
and Alecl; Brown in the ankle. The
troops fired the camp, riddled the woods
with ball, but the creatures of the
swamp were nowhere to be seen, and
the woods resumed their melancholy
and silence.

The three victims belonged to the
best families of whites in that region,
and their summary fate filled the whole
country side with the pall of woe and
terror.

Society seemed to have become dis-
rupted, the law without avail, and ven-
geance without call or reach of God or
man

1 talked on this matter with two of

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

the intimate white neighbors of the
Lowerys — viz., MacNeill, and McLeod.
MacNeill is a little, thiclv-set, aged old
man, with hard, twinkling eyes and
homespun clothes.

" I think I ouj^lit to liave some svm-
pathj," he said, "I have been robbed
time and again, my wife and daughter
shot at my J;hreshold^ my son-in-law,
Taylor Willard, and his family, returned
upon my hands for support, and my
sons banished from their country on
penalty of death."

■ "They have robbed me," said McLeod,
"of above three thousand dollars, com-
pel me to give tkem food and set it out
on my table for them, and when my
wife said the other day to Henry Berry
Lowery that he had impoverished us,
he answered cooly : —

" Well, I always know where to come
•when I want anything."

" They took my watch," resumed
McLeod, " and stopped me the other
day, and seized my pocket-book. Low-
ery looked over its contents and said,
' Sixteen dollars, is that your whole
pile ? Well, I won't take that.' "

" 1 have no desire to see any ven-
geance done to them," concluded
McLeod, " if they only leave the coun-
try and never return. I say let them
go, for really this band looks like as if
it never would be caught and never
give us ftny ptace."

THE MURDER OP DANIEL AND MAC-
NEILL M'LKOD.

In Moorfi county, a night's ride from
Scuifletown, a party of disguised men
killed Daniel and MacNeill McLeod
ai>d stabbed two women and a boy.

The motive was apparently robbery,
as the victims were supposed to have
been in receipt of a large sum of money,
and, as a horse and buggy had been
stolen the previous night near Shoe

Heel, the act was supposed to have
been committed by Lowery's band.

The perpetrators of the act were
never discovered, but a negro nei''hV)or
oi the McLeods was shot dead by the
citizens on suspicion of having been a
spy of the Lowerys. It is not that clear
this band in chargeable with the crime.

The story of John Tayh^r's death was
partly recited in a previous letter, but
as a crime, and not merely as a codicil
to the death of "Make" Sanderson, it
deserves repetition.

THE MURDER OF JOHN TAYLOR.

January 14, 1871, Henry Berry
Lowery murdered John Taylor, the
most determined and uncompromising
of his pursuers, at Moss Ni-ck, on the
mill dam, within two hundred yards of
soldiers on guard at the railway station.

The outlaws had previously robbed
Taylor, threatened him, and sent him
word that he should be killed on si^ht.
Taylor had spent the previous night
with his father-in-law, William C. Mc-
Neill, who lived a short way from the
depot.

Saturday morning, at eight o'clock,
he started with Malcolm D. MacNeill
toward the depot to meet the train.
Henry Berry Lowery and two others
suddenly rose up from the swamp be-
side the dam, and Henry Berry fired a
shot gun three feet fr> m Taylor's head,
sending the whole charge through his
head and temples, blowing off part of
the skull, and fragments of the brain fell
into the mill dam and floated down
against the bank with the current.

Steve Lowery almost instantly fired
at Malcolm MacNeill.

Henry Berry Lowery ran out of the
swamp, seized the quivering body of
Taylor by the legs and robbed it of $50
currency.

The troops at the depot rushed down

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

\f<Cb^

THE OUTLAW SHOT IN HIS CABIN.

to the spot where the outlaws disap-
peared into the swamp and fired, and
the same evening the Luinberton militia
took to the swamps, twenty-five in
number, and stayed out all night.

Not finding anything the people began
to adviicate bloodhounds as the only
way of tracking up the desperadoes.

THE MURDER OF JOHN SANDERS.

No crime known to modern society
presents such dark, mediaeval features
as the killinij of Sanders, a detective
polico officer from Boston and a native
of Nova Scotia.

It was the concluding portion of a
career of wild adventure, and to this
day the people of Robeson county turn
pale at the bloody reminiscence.

Sanders was one of several man who
have sought to obtain the large reward
offered for these outlaws, dead or
alive, in a sum in gross equal to a
handsome little fortune, and he was
accredited by the Sheriff of New Han-
over county to three or four white re-
publicans of Scuflletown.

Sanders appears to have been desti-
tute of honor ; but his scheme of cap-
turing these men was a shrewd one.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Aware that they were anxious to
leave the swainps and get safely out of
the United States to Mexico, or, at
least, to the frontier country, he pro-
posed to show them the way, assume to
be their protector and friend, and ulti-
mately to give them up on the road by
arranging, beforehand, to have them
intersected at some point in South
Carolina or Georgia.

At the time Henry Berry Lowery
fathomed this design and slew Sanders
for his treachery a wagon had been
prepared and packed, and the outlaws
had fully agreed to slip off, escorting
their movables and families under cover
of the woods and broken country.

To bind them to his confidence by
extraordinary means Sanders prosti-
tuted the rites of Masonry and

ORaANIZED MASONIC LODGES

in the Scuffletown region while teach-
ing a small negro school in that
vicinity.

He spent eighteen months of per-
severing cunning to win the sceptical
hearts of the bandits, but became him-
self corrupted by their females, and
reckless of speech and association.
Being suspected and looked upon with
an evil eye for living among the mu-
lattos and teaching them, Sanders also
joined the Ku Klux to appease the
white population, and, it is rumored,
was concerned in several night enter-
prises, whippings and vigils.

Here we have the perfection of
Goblin reality — a man sworn into
Masonry and, also, the Invisible Em-
pire, for the purpose of bringing a
band of outlaws to justice. .

Sanders was a stoop - shouldered,
thin-visaged, hook-nosed man, with a
broad, sharp forehead ; he had keeness

if apprehension and undoubted bold-
ness.

He died as he had lived, in mystery,
and out of the sight or reach of pity-
ing man, and there is reason to be-
lieve that his fate was to be attributed
to the want of caution of some of the
county authorities who had learned his
purposes.

SANDERS' CAPTURE BY THE
LOWERYS.:

In the middle of December, l870,
Sanders established a camp in a " bay"
near Moss Neck, close by the house
of William C. MacNeill.

Sanders was a loose talker, and had
informed many persons of his object
and MacNiell's sons visited him in his
secret camp and gave him advice and
information.

According to the statement of one of
the MacNeill boys, made before he was
warned out of the country, there was a
x-endezvous of several of the neighbors
called at Sanders' camp on Sunday,
November 20, 1870. Some of the
young men got to the camp at four o'-
clock in the afternoon, but MacNeill did
not arrive until seven o'clock.

As he walked down toward the "bay"
the young men slipped up to him and,
with ghastly faces, whispered that they
were all surrounded and that to move
would be certain death, covered, as they
all were, by the shot guns and pistols of
their besiegers.

The impetuous MacNeill reached his
hand toward his pistol, when four men
rose up in the bushes close beside him —
namely, Henry Berry Lowery, Stephen
Lowery, George Applewhite and Boss
Strong.

Henry Berry Lowery advanced, with
a cool, fiendish look, and took MacNeill's
repeater from its case, and told him to
make himself at home that night, for he

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

would be detained. MacNeill, disarmed,
joined the other prisoners around th^.
outlaw's camp fire.

After dusk Henry Berry Lowery led
MacNeill off from the camp into the
swamp and said : —

" God damn your soul, I want you to
tell me where Sanders is. He is expect-
ed here. If you don't tell uie where he
is and why he don't come I will kill you
dead. I intend to kill you anyhow when
I get Sanders. You had better own
right up !"

Not obtaininf; anvthin<f from Mac*
Neill, the outlaw walked him back to
the fire, and, after a little time, Steve
Lowery took MacNeill out for a like
purpose. Steve Lowery told MacNeill
that if he did not make a clean breast of
his knowledge of Sanders Henry Berry
Lowory would make the whole gang rid-
dle him.

Steve showea a.iIacNeill a pack of
cards which he had purchased at the
Scotch fair, a few miles from Shoe Heel,
and remarked, " We boys go anywhere,
and

THE WHOLE COUNTRY BELONGS TO
US."

Young MacNeill testifies that all that
night messengers were sent out to confer
with invisible persons, whose voices were
heard on the road side. These posted
sentinels and the outlaw leaders in camp
kept up communication all night long and
toward daylight the bandits grew very
impatient and threatened their prisoners
many times.

At early dawn Steve Lowery being
out on guard, the detained prisoners
heard the cry " Halt ! " and heard sev-
eral other voices belonging to persons
not seen in the camp. Almost immedi-
ately the voice of Sanders, the detective.
Was heard, saying, " I surrender."

Henry Berry Lowery, George Apple- I

white, and Henderson Oxendine now
r. n out and the conmiand was heard to
take the prisoner on to the Back Swamp.

In a few moments Henry Berry
Lowery and his brother Stephen
returned, saying, " We have got the
buck we wanted."

Henry Berry Li»wery then turned to
Malcolm MacNeill and said, " God
damn you, I have a great mind to kill
you right here. I ought to have killed
you before.

" You have been hunting me for years.
You are young, stout, and healthy,
however, and I don't want to take 'your
blood. I hate U> interfere with you and
your people ; but you have already
done so much to have me hanged or
shot that it would be right if I should
kill you right here. 1 will let you go
this time, however ; but you make
yourself scarce in this country. Your
folks may keep that siiebang at Moss
Neck; but you won't know when your
time has come. Get out of this country
mighty quick. Your father may stay
here if he wants to, but

TELL HIM TO WALK A CHALK LINE."

Young MacNeill then retired, covered
with the rifle of his unappeasable foe,
and he lost no time in obeying commandy
and quitting the counti-y. Sanders,
wiiose voice he recognized, was never
seen again by mortal eyes except by
the outlaws.

Nearly a month after the arrest of
Sanders, and on the testimony of the
people detained at his camp by the
Lowerys, three persons were arrested
as accomplices in the murder and charged
with being guardians of the road and
entrappers of the unfortunate Sanders.

These were Dick Oxendine, who now
keeps a barroom at Lumberton, John
Sampson and Robert Ransom.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

The end of the unfortunate Sunders
was related by Henderson Oxendine,
one of the outlaws, prior to his execu-
tion, and is fully confirmed by Henry
Dcrry Lowery himself, who said : —
•'The efficiency and morale of my
comnumd compelled me to lull San-
ders. We all pitied him, but if 1
hadn't killed him I would have had no
ri^ht to liill John Taylor or any of the
rest."

They marched Sanders to a secret
camp on a small island in Back Swamp,
near the residence of the late Zach T.
Chandler, and proceeded forthwith,
with devilish malignity, to torture him,
by firing volleys over his head, bruising
him with gunstocks and clubs, and
finally by administering doses of arsenic
to him and

OPENIXCJ HIS VEIIS'S WITH A KNIFE,

For three days, or until Thursday,
these horrible wretches surrounded their
white victim, their dull blue eyes calmly
enjoying his agonies, and he reminded
every hour that escape or mercy were
hopeless.

Human or savage nature, happily,
seldom presents a picture so atrocious
as one decoyed and disappointed man
guarded in the wild swamps of Caro-
lina, but almost within sound of Chrsi-
tian firesides, looking into inevitable
and violent death after days of pain.

The victim's fortitude and philosophy
earned the respect of his murderers,
and before carrying his sentence into
execution they permitted him to write a
fiirewell letter to his injured wife and
family, which they posted by mail with
a sort of grim and military observance
of justice.

The object of keeping Sanders alive
for the better part of a week has not
been explained — whether due to divided

councils, love of persecuting him while
still alive, or the desire to wrest infor-
mation from him.

He had reason to lament that he ever
left his residence and associations in
enlightened New England, to die thus
miserably in the swamps of the Pedee
region, among the human moccasins
that infested it.

On Thursday night the outlaws told
Sanders that his time had come, and
they blindfolded his eyes and tied him
to a tree.

He made a few words of a prayer
and gave a signal, and at once Steve
Lowery, the darkest Indian of the
group,

EMPTIED BOTH BARRELS OF HIS
SHOT GUN
into the helpless wretch.

After the hanging of Oxendine, a
party of twenty-five soldiers and citi-
zens, led by Mayor Thomas and Lieuten-
ants Home and Simpson, followed the
directions given by Oxendine, and,
without difficulty found the camp w here
Sanders hud been confined. It was in
the densest part of the swamps, and
scattered around were the spade used
for digging the grave and some cooking
utensils.

They proceeded to search for the re-
mains, and found them decently wrapped
in a blanket, and deposited face up,
with the hands folded in a dignified
manner, and the daugerreotype of

THE MURDERED MAN'S WIFE

reverently placed upon his breast.
These cool particularities and delibera-
tion make the tragedy even more hein-
ous by the awe which they inspire.

It is murder with the appearance of
sovereignty and martial right.

The occurence will frighten the rising
generation of Carolnia for the century
to come.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

THE ANARCHY OAUSED BY THE
LOWERYS.

One looks in vain for any other cause
of this fateful and scandalous slate of
affairs in an old and sedate part of
North Carolina than the anomalous fact
of a large free negro settlement in a
period of slavery, and the shiftless,
predatory and insolent' dominion of a
few families in it of corrupted and
savage blood, wliich could be tamed
with difficulty and never quite sub-
jugated.

Freedom fell wiih almost tropical
heat and spontaneity upon this settle-
ment and warmed to active life the
Lowery vipers, who proudly essayed to
compete in military qualities with the
late slaveholders and Confederate sol-
diery.

Party politics has only availed to

intensify, prolong and dignify this

strife, while meantime murders reach

thi' score and the robberies are innume-
rable.

Enougn can be said on the side of
the Lowerys to give them a trifle of an
apology, but the condition of things is
now such that all classes of the popula-
tion are interested in the death and
overthrow of th^se scoundrels, who are
worse than Ku Klux — they are Apaches.

They are turning the heads of the
colored people and prompting negro
imitators, and

THE VERY CHILDREN OF SCUFFLE-
TOWN
are growing up barbarians with the lust
for plunder and rapine.

There is little to choose between the
politicians of the rival parties.

The undoubted existence of Ku
Kluxism — now perished utterly and
without mourners or apologists — has
made the republicans take the part of
the Lowery gang as a necessary reac-
tion and return of resistance.

But the Lowery feud began in 1803,
before the Confeder.icy was suppressed,
and proceeded entirely from causes in-
separable from the war.

The leader of the gang, and, indeed,
all associated with it, have shown a
ferocity, a premeditation and an insol-
ence frightful to understand and destruc-
tive of all example and order,

Tne State and county authorities have
dene their best and accomplished noth-

mg.

The desperation and confidence of
the outlaws is greater than ever. They
fear nothing and terrify all.

Can Congress or the President permit
the colored people of the South to be
longer debauched by this spectacle of a
few men of color defying a State ?

OMINOUS INTELLIGENCE.

Wilmington, N, C, March 23, 1272.

The latest intelligence from the
Herald correspondent in the hands of
the Robeson county outlaws renders
even more grave the question of his
probable fate. It was his intention to
accompany the outlaws to their several
hiding places, they agreeing to carry
him to their haunts in the swamp blind-
folded, and it was his intention to leave
them on Monday next if possible. To-
day Rhody Lowery, the wife of Henry
Berry Lowery, appeared at the depot at
Moss Neck and made a statement to the
special messenger of the Herald as to
the recent movements of the correspond-
ent.

MRS RIIODY BRINGS STRANGE NEWS.

Rhody states that upon the return of
the Herald correspondent fr(jm Moss
Neck yesterday, after his delivery of
his package of correspondence for the
Herald bureau hero, he was seated in
her cabin when Andrew Strong and

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Steve Lowery suddenly entered and I
peremptorily ordered him to I

" COME AND GO WITH US. "

Rhody states the Hearald corres-
pondent, manifesting great trepidation,
immediateiy obeyed their order, and
was last seen by her moving in com-
pany with the outlaws, whose manner
toward him was sullen and menacing,
in the direction of the swamp. Rhody
has seen nothing of the Herald corres-
pondent since his departure from her
cabin, and s;ie professes entire igorance
of the disposition made of him by the
outlaws.

AN OMINOUS HINT.

In connection with this 1 make an ex-
tract from a letter from your correspond-
ent on yesterday. He says : — " In a
conversation with Andrew Strong and
Steve Lowery of yesterday I asked if
I could see ' Boss,' who they say is not
dead, though I know he is, and Steve,
with a laugh, said to Andrew, ' Yes, he
shall see Boss before he goes away,'
which remark was accompanied by a
villanous chuckle. I am on parole now.
They made me put my hand on my
heart and swear I would not try to run
away, and then I gave them full per-
mission to kill me if I did, and not ac-
cuse them at the Day of Judgment.
They treat me well, except that they
compel me to drink their infernal
whiskey. "

Rhody Lowery's statement concern-
ing the Herald correspondent, taken in
connection with the ominous utterances
of Steve Lowery, has created a feeling
of profound apprehension here regard-
ing his fate.

THRILLING FACTS.

The Herald Correspondent Among the
Lowery Bandits. A Week in the
Hands of the Lowerys. Tlie Father
of the Oxendines. The Motiier ol J
the Lowerys. Her Bitter bcory by
the Grave of tlie Murdered. Khody
Lowerj'^, the Queen of Scullletown.
Face to Face With tiie Terrors.
Their Appearance and Equipment.
A Night ia Khody Lowery's Cabin.
Lite of the Hunted men.

Terrible Tales From Terrible
Tongues. A Blindfold Journey to
Their Hiding Places— The Island
Armory. Released from Bondage.
Excitement in Wilmino-ton.

Wilmington, N. C, March 25, 1872-

ARRIVAL OF THE CORRESPONDENT.

To the amazement, and yet to the
great satisfaction, of^the public here the
Heeald correspondent who has been
for nearly ten days past in the swamps
of the Carolina outlaws returned to
Wilmington this afternoon by the Char-
lotte road, which traverses the Scuffle-
town district. Up to the time of his
arrival in Wilmington little or no hope
was indulged of his safety, in view of
the threats against him which have re-
cently been made by the outlaws. His
safe arrival in Wilmington this after-
noon

CREATED AN INTENSE EXCITEMENT,

and despite the fearfully stormy weather
the Herald correspondent was the ob-
ject of curiosity and the Herald was
the theme of discussion and praise. The
universal sentiment in Wilmington is
that the Herald correspondent is the
hero of a wonderful feat of daring, and
there is universal rejoicing that he has
finally escaped the great perils which
have for more than a week past envir-
oned him. Details given by your cor-
respondent regarding his adventures
among the outlaws confirm the accounts
given in the Herald despatches of the

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

PERIL AND DIFFICULTIES

which he has undergone. He left for
New York this afternoon, and will give
to the Herald the fullest possible de-
tails of his thrilling adventures. On
Friday last your correspondent was
taken by the outlaws farther into the
swamp, and

CONDUCTED BY Til EM BLINDFOLDED

from Rhody Lowery's cabin to several
of their most secret hiding places. At
the moment of leaving lihody's cabin
the Hkrald correspondent experienced
the greatest sense of personal danger
suffered by him during his career with
the outlaws. Tom Lowery had especi-
ally urged the killing of the •»

"DAMNED YANKEE,"

and as the other outlaws conducted him
away from Rhody's cabin, with the re.
mark to Rhody that he would never see
daylight again, your correspondent had
little hope but that Tom Lowery's
savage threat would be executed. Con-
ducted by outlaws through the swamp
blindfolded, except when his captors
chose to remove the bandage, he trav-
ersed the swamp, in some places wad-
ing almost

WAIST DEEP IN WATER.

and again reaching solid gronnd, thus
gaining one of the hiding places of the
outlaws, which he inferred to be situa-
ted upon an island. The blindfold was
removed, and he found hitnself an in-
mate ot a low, pitched cabin, in which
a moderately tall man could not pos-
sibly stand erect. In this cabin were
from

THIRTY TO FORTY SHOT GL'NS

but no smaller arms. The outlaws
would not permit him to look out of
the window and make any observations

of the surroundings. He was told that
he was already the possessor of more of
their secrets

THAN ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING

outside of their gang, and more than
they intended anybody else should ever
have access to again. While in the
swamps your correspondent was repeat-
edly informed by th<; outlaws of their
suspicions that he would attempt to
chloroform them, and that he was a
government spy sent to repeat the role
in which the Detective Sanders had
been caught by them.

A DEMOCRATIC DEMON.

He was also told by Steve Lowery
that a prominent democrat of Robeson
county had given them information that
he was a federal spy and that he would
undoubtedly do them great harm before
he left them.

" Still, " said Steve, " we believe that
you are honest, and we will trust you ;
but

DONT UNDERTAKE TO COME HERE
AGAIN

because you know too many of our
secrets. " Steve then added, " We
have trusted three other men besides
you and they all betrayed us, but still
we will trust you and let you

GIVE THE HERALD ALL THE INFOR-
MATION

you can about us. " After leaving the
swamps the outlaws carried your corres-
pondent on Sunday back to Rhody's
cabin, and this morning accompanied
him to Moss Neck,

WAVING A FRIENDLY ADIEU TO HIM

as the train left. As a mark of their
confidence in the honesty of his inten-
tions toward themselves, the outlaws
gave the Herald correspondent

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

A DOUBLE-BARRELLED SHOT GUN,

formerly belonging to Henry Berry
Lowery, the deceased outlaw chief, and
Sieve Lowery presented him wi'h three
silver pieces, to be given, one to his
wife, another to his baby, and the third
to be kept by himself as a souvenir of
his trip among the Carolina outlaws.
Your correspondent is warm in his ac-
knowledgment of Rhody's seryjces to
himself in aidijig him to retain the con-
fidence of the outlaws, and

PRAISES HER COURAGE
and intelligence. Rhody carried him
to many points of interest, among
others to the grave of the unfortunate
Sanders, a spot which the outlaws
seemed to dread visiting witharem ika-
ble superstitious apprehension. Upon
one occasion thts Herald correspondent
was within half a mile of the grave of
Sanders and begjied the outlaws to

CONDUCT HIM 10 THE GRAVE,
but they refused, as they also did to
visit the graves of other victims of their
vengeance.

The satisfiiction of the community of
Wilmington at the safe arrival in their
midst of the daring Herald correspond-
ent is heightened by his confirmation of
the previous tidings from him of the
deaths of Henry Berry Lowery and of
Boss Strong, the second in cleverness
and courage of the gang of outlaws.
During the abs' nee of your correspond-
(Mit in the swamps the excitement in
Wilmington was at fever heat and found
some curious forms of expression.

FIRST LETTER FROM OUR CAP-
TURED CORRESPONDENT.

) SCUFFLETOWN, RoBHSON CoUNTY, »

'. N. C, MARcn 1, 1872 f

That the thrilling pictures given in
the Herald of the outlaws of the Robe-

son county swamps, in North Carolina,
with the history of their deeds of daring
murder and rapine, had awakened a
deep sensation over the United States,
was everywhere evident. It seemed
incredible that a band of five men
should persistently defy a community
such as the Old North State. The
criminal supineness of the State authori-
ties, the inactivity of the federal govern,
ment and the terrorized condition of the
inhabitants of the district all expressed
an anumalous condition of affairs which

CALLED FOR THE FULLEST INVES-
TIGATION.

The account given by another corres-
pondent had exhausted all the infor-
mation surrounding the gang, had given
graphic sketches of the now famous
mulatto settlement, with its ominous
name of Scuffletown, had detailed the
outrages by the gang, and traced back
their history to the days of the rebel
fortifications at Wilmington, when
Henry Berry Lowery first took to the
swamps, to avoid impressment to work
with the slaves of the Southern plant-
ers. Escaped federal prisoners, too,
from the Confederate prison at Florence,
S. C, were seen flitting across the
swamps and

HIDING FURTIVELY AMONG THE
SH.\NT1ES .

of the free negro settlement of Scufile-
town to take their places awhile with
Hinry Berry Lowery and his fellows
in the swamps. By and by came the
sweep of Sherman's army to the sea,
and it was related how the " bummers"
found guides and supporters among the
free mulattoes of Scuffletowu.

It came out, to.i, in a ghastly way,
that the rebel whites of the district,
wishing to wreak their vengeance on
the colored people, came in the night to

THE SWAMF OUTLAWS.

t)ld Allen Lowery's cabin, and, dragging
forth himself and his son William, mer-
cilessly

SHOT THEM, FATHER AND BOY,

with the one volley, and then went their
way, pntting two of iheir supposed ene-
mies out of the way only to create a
pack of avenging devils in the persons
of the old man's sons and their outlawed
friends.

The war closed, and, rightly or
wrongly, the white people of Robeson
county true to their murder of the fa-
ther, exempted the Lowerys from the
act of oblivion. How truly has it been
said that " we can never forgive those
we have injured ! "

The end of the strife between North
and South brought no peace to Scuffle-
town The " angels " were in the
swamps robbing by day murdering by
ni<'ht ; the rebels had become Kii Klux,
and from fighting manfully in the sun-
light were trooping in

THEIR MURDEROUS MASQUERADE,

under the pines and cypresses at night
and dra^jrin" a negro here and there
from his shanty, let him sing his wild,
hurried prayers for a minute or two,
and then stopping it all with buckshot,
but carefully skirting the outlaws
themselves, some day to fall, like John
Taylor, under a " bead " drawn by
Henry Berry or one of his broth<u-
outlaws.

This was not civilization. The irre-
sponsible lex talionis of the hater and
hated, the state of things that created
in the land of Muscovy between serf
and feudal master the phrase that de-
scribed the murder of the latter by the
former as " the wild justice of revenge,"
existed in the land of the Lowerys with
more degrading surroundings than ever
before or in any otner country.

That social, restraining force called
government had failed to put an end
to it, and there seemed, previous to the
Hkhalu's expose, to be a sort of laissez
oiler agreed on in tacit apathy by all
piirties.

But even yet the outlaws themselves
had not spoken.

THE OUTLAWS STOHY FOR HIMSELF

was unuttered, except through his sen-
tence of death by word of mouth, fob
lowed pretty surely by execution
through the barrel (jf a rifle.

In perhaps any other state of things
no more would be needed previous to
setting about his censure. As things
stood it seemed that there must be
something needing fuller detail — some
thing of moment in their position which
neither the shivering sympathizers of
their own race nor the vauntinji but
trembling white foes thereof would or
could impart. This was to be got from
the outlaw's lips along.

It did not require much deep reason-
ing to arrive at this conclusion. It
forced itself naturally forward, and the
journal whieh had enterprise enough to
gather the first part of the story could
surely learn the second.

Without, then, any feeling of rashness
or bravado th;it I am aware of, but
simply in the exercise of a grave duty,
to shrink from which would be abhor-
rent to my nature,

I LEFT FOR THE WOODS AND SWAMPS

of Robeson.

My preparations were simple as my
mission was direct, and relying on my
ability to make the honorable nature of
my purpose apparent even to the des-
perate men it was my deliberate pur-
pose to meet face to face.

Passinir over the incidents which f'n
not properly belong to my narrative, 1

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

may say that on my arrival in Wil-
mington 1 found the Lowerys and the
Herald expose to be the only topics of
interest in that quiet Carolina town, and
the tone of the well-dressed, lounging
chivalry about the hotels was not at all
encouraging.

I told the object of my visit to several,
and the universal verdict was

" A DANGEROUS GAME, STRANGER,

rather you than me." They recalled to
me with all the discouraging emphasis
which a slow ejaculation of alternate
■words and tobacco-spittle can command
the fearful fate of Saunders, the detec-
tive, and generally finished by saying : —

" AN' HE WAS SMARTEHRN YOU LOOK,

STRANGER."

This continual replication of warning
did not tend to cheer me.

It recalled in a painful way 1 had
never before imagined the poem of
Excelsior with its dismal forebodings
of a fatal ending to my venture, but I
dashed these all away. The thought
that Longfellow's aimless young mad-
man who died in the snow, had nothing
in common with a man endeavoring in
his own humble way to serve the civili-
zation which lay so sadly wrecked out
in the swamp region beyond.

If the scare had reached Wilmington,
I reasoned, I shall not then have much
difficulty in getting the whites of Robe-
son county to assist me in ridding them
of the objects of their terror through,
perhaps,

A MORE MERCIFUL "WAY

n
than killing them off like dogs. But in

this I was destined to be mistaken

Excepting Captain Morrison ; the
"king of conductors " on the Wilming-
ton, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad.

and Ed Hayes, of Shoe Heei, no one
encouraged me to proceed.

From the ticket agent, from whom I
bought a ticket for Moss Neck, at Wil-
mington, with his horrified ejaculation —

"My God! stranger, you are not
going to stop there !"

To the merchants of Shoe Heel, who
assured me death would be the sure fate
of any stranger who would venture into
Scuffletown, I heard but the one opinion,
that the Lowerys were devils and would
welcome an opportunity to kill a white
man.

Before leaving Wilmington I pre-
pared

A LETTER, DIRECTED TO H. B.
LOWERY.

stating that I desired to interview him
for the Heiiald and offered to give
myself into his hands if we would grant
me the interview.

It was my intention to stop at Moss
Neck and attempt to find a messenger
who would deliver my letter, but oh
the train Captain Morrison advised me
to go on to Shoe Heel where I would
find better accomodations than at Moss
Neck, and from where I could certainly
send a messenger to the outlaws.

I took his advice, but was unable to
find any one in or about Slioe Heel
who would deliver or who knew any
one who would present my petition to
the " King " of Robeson county.

The reported killing of Boss Strong,
it was supposed, had

SO ENRAGED THE OUTLAWS

that the time was particularly inauspi-
cious for my visit.

I met here James McQueen, or Don-
ahoe, of Richmond county, N. C, who
asserted he had killed the notorious
Boss.

He is a tall, awkward, shambling.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

dark coniplexioneJ man, of Scoitish I once unfDlded the object of my calling*
decent, twenty-five years of age; he has iuid asked if I could be permitted to

very small eyes, which he has a trick
of dropping the instant he is looked at.

The next morning, March 14, I left
Shoe Heel and came to Eureka, or
Buie's Store, half way between Moss
Neck and Red Bank.

At. the store, close to the railroad,
the colored clerk, of whom 1 enquired
the road to Patrick Lowery's, left the
store to point it tmt to me.

To him I stated the object of my vis-
it, and asked him to inform any of the
outlaws he mii^ht see what I was after.

THE FATHER UF TWO MURDERERS.

Soon after leaving the store I met an
old negro who asked me if I was louk-
inj; for anvbodv, when I told him I
wanted to go to Pat Lowery's. lie
told me I was in the right road, and
added : —

'• Fs skeered of strangers most to deff,
but you hain't got no gun. "

Tiiis was Jack O.xendine, the father
of Henderson, who was hung in Lum-
berton in 1870, and Calvin, who is now
in the Wilmington jail, charged with
being implicated in t e King murder.

At the conclusion of his introduction
he said : —

" ' Fore God, dis is powerful bad
country to live in ; ebery now and den
de Ku Kluck come iu yer, and with
their shootin' an' uhippin' an' hangin',
an' de men out by deyselves totin' dere
guns, I's scart to defT. *'

A short half mile from the station
brought me to

THE HOME OF PAT LOWERY,

the oldest brother of Henry Berry, and
a preacher. When 1 got there he was
working in his carpenter shop, near his
house — for he is not above honest lab(»r
notwithstanding his profession. I at

stay with him a few days while I u«Mld
make efforts to meet the outlaws. He
was perfectly willing I should make his
house my home while here, but thought
my chance of seeing Henry was very
slim.

It had been reported for the past four
weeks that he was dead, and many be-
lieved it, even some of his Jiiends, while
the majority thought the story had bee*i
originated by his wife and brothere to
cover his escnpe from the county.

Patrick told me S:eve and Tom Low-
erv

HAD PASSED HIS HOUSE A FEW
DAYS BEFORE,

but it might be a lot g time before they
would be in their immediate neighbor-
hood again.

After a long conversation between
him and James (Jxendine, a well-to-do
mulatto fiirmer living near by, it was
decided that my best plan would be to
go over to the home of old Mrs. Low-
ery, the mother of Patrick and Henry.

They both assured me it would be
perfectly safe, for the outlaws never in-
terfered with any but those who trou-
bled them.

For a consideration Patrick consent-
ed to give me his horse on which to •
ride over, and his son Allen, a bright
boy of sixteen, to guide me. After a
dinner of

CORN BREAD, BACON AND COFFEE.

we started on our journey, and I must
confess to a slight sinking of the heart
as I lost sight of the railroad and plung-
ed into the swamps, the lurking places
of the Lowery outlaws.

IN THE OUTLAWS LAND.

I had ridden about a mile, when the-
discomfort produced by my horse'*

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

miserable gait, and the barigiii<r of my
valise against my legs, became too
great, and I proposed to my guide that
he should ride awhile.

But the change was not for the better,
and it had scarcely been made when we
came to one of the low places in the
road that are so common here, called
" branches," and which are feeders to
the swamps

Alons one side of these branches are
laid, or erected on stumps, logs for the
convenience of pedestrians.

They are generally unhewn, all very
narrow, many of them decayed, and very
few that stand firm under any move-
ment. At the first of these I came to,
after dismounting,

I LOST MY BALANCE,

and got into the water knee deep. I
remounted the horse, then, and, except-
ing the gait and banging aforesaid and
crushing of my legs against the trees,
first on one side and then on the other,
as I followed Allen in the narrow foot-
path through which he led me, I suffered
no great inconvenience.

About two and a half miles from
Patsedo we came to the " Back Swamp,"
where for about three hundred and fifty
yards the black water crosses the road
flowing sluggishly through the brush,
and cypress trees.

Along the foot logs here Allen ran,
with the confidence inspired by long
practice.

ANDREW STRONG'S CABIN.

About a mile from the Back Swamp
we passed the cabin of Andrew Stiong,
one of the outlaws, where his younger
brother, Boss, was shot the Friday be-
fore.

We passed close to the house, and a
couple of women came to the door, and

[ stood there as long as the house was in
sight.

As I have since learned, there was
another pair of eyes Avatching us from
a thicicet near the house. Andrew
Strong himself, with

HIS GUN READY FOR A SHOT,

in his hand, studied me as 1 passed.
Another long stretch of water, mud,
and sand, and wc came to Henry Berry
Lowery's house, now in the occupancy
of his wife, Rhody. A quarter of a
mile further and we reached our desti-
nation, the home of

OLD MRS. ALLEN LOWERY.

Here we were greeted by the loud
and decidedly savage barking of three
large dogs. Two or tliree very light
mulatto girls drove them away, and
opened the gate for me ; as I passed in
I was put in the presence of the old
woman, who gave me a very hospitable
reception, and assured me I was wel-
come to st:iy as long as 1 pleased, if I
could put up with their rough fare.

Mrs. Lovvery has the largest house
in this section of country ; it is weather-
boarded, has four good sized rooms,
and a kitchen attached, aud a wide
porch in front. It is on a plantation
containing about seventy-five acres, and
has numerous out-buildings connected
with it. There has been no division of
the estate or property since old Allen
Lowery was killed, the children

GIVING ALL THE PROFITS TO TPIEIR
MOTHER.

One son, Sinclair, living near, super-
intends the farm, and assists her when
necessary. This little plantation pro-
duced last year eight bales of cotton
and four hundred bushels of corn.

Soon after my arrival I met Sinclair,
who is a dark mulatto, with a good

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

BOSS STRONG

countenance. He told me he did not
know whether Henry Berry was alive
or dead ; that no one had seen him for
four or five weeks. ^Irs. Lowery said
the same. Sinclair addfd : —

" I will be glad it he is dead, for he
is a very bad man, and has done a heap
of harm."

He further told me he had not been
on friendly terms with Henry since the
marriacre of the latter to Rhody Strong ;
the marriage it had been announced
would be solemnized at his mother's
nouse, and Sinclair, fearing that an
attack would be made on the house by
the oflic^rs in pursuit of Henry, objected
to the ceremony being performed theie.
When Henry was arrested he accused
Siaclair of having informed on him, and

ON- GUARD.

they had never been on good terms
afterwards. Steve and Tom

TOOK PART WITH HENRY

in his qnarrol ; so that Sinclair could
give me no information of the outlaws.

I would here remark that this band
are known in thoii- neighborhood by the
name "outlaws;" their friends call
them and they style themselves out-
laws.

W^hen I returned to the house after
the conversation with Sinclair, who was
working in a fioiJ. 1 was presented to
Iihody, the wife of Henry Berry Low-
ery.

THE "QUEEI^ OF SCUFFLETOWN."
This young woman is remarkably

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

prettv ; her face oval, of a very light
color; large, dark, mournful-looking
eyes, with long lashes ; well shaped
moul'i ; with, small, even teeth, well
rounded Qhin ; nose slightly retrousee,
with profusion of straight jet black hair,
combine to make her a very pleasant
object to gaze at. She has small hands
and feet, and on the latter she wears
No. 2, and still cramps her feet less than
the majority of white women. She is
of medium height, with a very well
developed figure, and is lietween twenty-
one and twenty-two years old. When
I add that she has a low sweet voice,
and a great many little graceful motions
of her head and body, it will be seen
that she is a raj'a avis in ScufRetown.
To the above description I regret that 1
am compelled to add that this queen
cannot write, that

SHE SMOKES A PIPE AND RUBS
SNUFF.

When Rhody learned the object of
my visit she said she would undertake
to have my message conveyed to the
outlaws, and she had no doubt they

would ffrant me an interview. Hen

Berry, she said, was away, and she
could not tell wlien he v/ould return.
I walked home with her, r.nd examined
carefully the home of the notorious out-
law leaden.

THE OUTLAW'S NEST.

The cabin of this man is built pre-
cisely as are all those of the poorer
mulattoes — one story high, logs from
three to eight inches apart, the intersti-
ces not filled in as in log houses at the
North, but covered by boards on either
the inside or outside, never both. This
house had the- boards on the outside.
There are two doors, opposite each
other, secured by modern bolts and
buttons, and on the third side is the

capacious hearth or fireplace, with chim-
ney built of logs, lined and floored with
clay. On the side opposite the fireplace
stands the bed, and above and beside it
are stretched several poles, upon which
hang the clothes of the family.

There are no windows, nor any open-
ings for light but the doors and chimney.
Indeed, of some twenty houses of mu-
lattoes I visited, 1 found but two, those
ofJNIrs. Allen Lowery and Pat'^ick Low-
ery, in which there were windows.

The house of H. 13. Lowery is within
a small enclosure, which is surrounded
by a large one, and is on his father
Allen's estate. The furniture of this
house consists of

A BED, A TABLE, TFIREE CHAIRS,

and three stools. Over the fireplace
are pasted a numb<n" of pictures cut
from the illustrated papers, while a
colored print, labelled "The Two Beau-
ties," hangs over the table. Rhody had
left her "help" — a light mulatto, who
had been engaged by Andrew Strong
to stay with her for six weeks for a pair
of shoes and a calico dress — in charge of

HER CHILDREN—

Sally Ann, aged five ; Henry Delany,
aged three, and Neelvann, aijed one
year and two months. They are all of
a very bright coloi-, strong, active, and
healthy, the boy being particularly
bright. He is said to bear a strong
resemblance to his father.

1 spent an hour or more with Rhody,
She told me, further, if I would come
back the next morninfj she mi";ht have
some information for me, and that in
the meantime I might rest assured I
would be in no danger from the out-
laws or their friends.

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

BY THE Or-D MAN'S GRAVE— OLD
MllS. LOWEllYS STORV-

The iTxt moniint; ( March 15) old
Mrs. Lowery took nut to a small unen-
closed grave in a field near her house,
where, marked by four rails lying on
the ground, was iho grave of her husband
and son William. The old woman's
voice was broken, and the tears rolled
down her withered face even now as she
told mo how they met their death.

There had been no trouble between
them and any of their white neighbors,
except that some of their sons had flod
from the officers who wanted to take
them to wt)rk in the rebel fortifications
at Wilmington.

In 18G1 a party of whites, com-
manded by James Barnes, came to the
house and took the old man and Wil-
liam away, at the same time,

THEY ASKED FOR SPADES,

and took some along with them ; some
of them r.turned directly and ca;-ried
ol 1 Mrs. Lowery and her two daugh-
ters to the house of a white man, Rob-
ert McKensie, where they wee locked
up in a smoke bouse.

Mckensie then went away saying he
was going up to see how the Loweiy
men were faring.

When they returned home, in a
thicket not far from the house, they
found a new-made, shallow grave, in
which were the bodies of Allen and
William Lowery, lying one above the
other, riddled with musket balls.

The next day they came back and
took me out into the woods and said
they were going to kill me if I didn't
tell them where the Yankee prisoners
were hid. I didn't know and I told
them so, but they wouldn't believe me.
They blindfolded me and tied me to a
tree, and said they were going to shoot

me. I heard them firing, and then I
fainted. When 1 fainted they untied
me and sent the girls to bring me too.

This was old Mrs. Lowery's story,
and all the mulattocs whom I met and
questioned about it, told me about the
same thing.

From the grave of the Lowery's I
went straight to Rhody's house. As 1
entered the gate of the outer enclosure
I noticed a man standing in the doorway
who stepped back within the house. As
I reached the inner gate he again came
to the door and

I CONFESS TO SOilE NERVOUSNESS

as I saw his equipments. But it was
no time to stop now, and in a moment
1 was in Henry Berry Lowery's house,
in the presence of Steve Lowery and
Andrew Strong, two of the famous
swamp outlaws. With as composed aa
air as the nature of the case would pe^
mit I stepped forward.

" I believe these are the men " (I am
not sure but that I said gentlemen) "I
wanted to see," and extended my hand
to the one nearest me, who grasped it
cordially as Rhody mentioned his name,
Andrew Strong, and mine, and then
repeated the ceremony with Steve.
Both of them offered me chairs ; but I
accepted that from which Andrew had
just arisen, it being nearer the fire, and
immediately

EXPLAINED MY PURPOSE

in seeking them. I told them the great
paper of America had giv. n some at-
tention to them, and had published their
histories as furnished by the white
people of Robeson county ; but that the
people of the United States might have
a clear and just conception of afliiira
here I had been sent down to see them,
h'ar their stories and the circumstances
that had made them outlaws and se«

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

Qow they lived. I told thein. further' As the shooting of Boss was the chief

topic I had heard discussed after lea\ing
Wilmington, I told them I had seen
James ]\lcQueen or Donahoc, at Shoe
Heel, and had taken down his version

that
[

HAD NO WEAPON BUT A SMALL
REVOLVER.

which they could have while I was with
them, but which they would oblige me
by returning when 1 left thom.

They replied that Rhody had told
them the nature of my business, that
they were glad of an opportunity of giv-
ing their story to the country, for the
" papers were telling so many d — d lies
about them," that I would be perfectly
safe with them, and that I might keep
my pistol.

THE MEN I MET.

Steve Lowery is five feet ten inches
high, thick set, with long arms and legs,
and is very strong ; he has a very dark
yellow complexion, hazel eyes, bright
and restless, black straight hair and thin
mustache and goatee. He was armed
with a Spencer rifle, two double-barrell-
ed shot suns, one of the latter and the
rifle beinsz slung from his shoulders, and
three six-barrelled revolvers in his belt,
while two United States cartridge boxes
hung from his shoulders.

Andrew Strong is nearly white, about
six feet high, with rather mild eyes and
reddish beard and hair, tlie latter cut
short. He carried a heavy rifle and the
same number of shot-guns, revolvers
and cartridge boxes as Steve Lowery, be-
sides a heavy canvas haversack. His
impedimenta ("turn," he calls it) weighs
not less than a hundred pounds. He

ADJUSTED ALL HIS EQUIPMENTS
ON ME,

and I C0!ild barely stagger across the
floor with them. After a few general
remarks, Andrew told me they would
tell me all I wanted to know if I would
question them.

of the affair, and would : ow like to
know if it was correct. 1 road to them
McQueen's story as follows: —

DONAIIOE'S STORY OF KILLING EOSS
STRONG.

" Last Thursday night (May 7), 1
reached the house of Andrew Strong,
on the edge of Soufllctown, about ten
miles from here, at twelve o'clock', I
fixed a good blind about 150 vards from
the house, and lying down, I watched the
rest of the nitfht and all the next dav,
eating some provisions I had bi-ought
along. About half-past seven P. M.
Friday, Andrew came out of the wools,
and after stopping and looking around
him in all directions he went into the
house, and directly come out and gave
a low call, when Boss came out of the
woods to the house; they were each
armed with two rifles and two or three
revolvers. A little after eight o'clock,
when I thought they woul 1 be at sup-
per, I slipped up to the house and look-
ed in through the cat hole in the door,
as I supposed they were eating their
supper by the light on the hearth. Be-
side Andrew's wife, Flora and a Miss
Cummings were there. I kept watching
there until Boss laid down on the floor
with his feet to the fire and his head to-
wards me and commenced

PLAYING ON A MOUTH ORGAN.

Then I saw my cnance, and I pushed
the muzzle of my rifle (a Henry) through
the cat nole unt I it was not over tnree
feet from his head, took a stead v aim
by the light of the fire and shot. When
I fired the women screamed and said: —

THE JSWAiMP OUTLAWS.

LIKENESS OF SANDERS THE SPY.

"HES SHOT," "NO HE ISN'T," "YES
HE IS,"

and I looked in as quick as I could get
my gun out of the way. Boss' arms
and legs had fallen straii^ht from his
body, and there was a little movement
of the shoulders as if he was trying to
get up. Andrew Strong was then stand-

ing

IN THE SHADOW IN THE CORNER

and he stayed there until I left. He
said to his wife, '' Honey, you go out

and see what it is," and opened the
door opposite the one 1 was at and
pushed her out, but did not come around
to the side I was ; but went in directly
and said there was nobody about. He
sent her out again, telling her to look
in the corners and jams ; but before she
had got well out, he said, " Come back,
Il'ney, he was blowing on that thing
and it busted and blnwed his head off,"
and directly after he said, " My God !
he's shot in the head ; it must have
come from the cat hole," and sent his

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

wife out again, and I slipped off. Wlien
1 returned the cat hole was shut up and
the house was all dark. Then I come
bacl^ to Shoe Heel."

THE OUTLAWS HOLD A COUNCIL.

Before they left they went out of the
house and held an animated conversa-
tion of perhaps hulf an hour's duration
in the garden, after which Steve address-
ed nne : —

" We've trusted three men before
and ebery one of dem betrayed us, an'
we swo' we'd neber trust no stranger
agin, but you look hmiest, an your story
'pears to be all right, an' we is gwine
to trust you some. Now you's got a-
bout Donahoe's shootiii B ss, we are
gwine to keep you heah till you can

PUT IN DE PAPER HOW WE KILLED
DONAHOE.

We won't hurt you, an' you kin travel
about whar you bab a mind to in dis
place, but you must swear an oath dat
you won't ti-y to go away without us
lettiu' you".

I was somewhat dismayed at this
speech, but expressed myself satisfied
with the arrangement. I saw I would
have an opportunity of seeing wild life
not often enjoyed by Northern men,
;and felt that 1 was in no great danger if
J acted honestly towards my captors.

PART TO MEET A^AIN.

The outlaws then slung on their
. "equipments, and after promising to
meet me at the *' New Bridge,'' three
miles distant, the next morning, strode
into the heavy pine forest, and I went
back into the cabin, where Rhodv
taught me how to rub snuff.

ScuFFELTOWN, March 22 1872.

THE DEATH OF HENRY BERRY LOW-
ERY.

As this letter cannot be read by the

people of this settlement before I have
left it, the most important piece of in.
formation I have to conimunicate shall
be given first. Henry Beny Lowerv,
the notable chief of tne notorious swamp
outlaws is actually dead. This is denied
bv all of his comrades, and his relatives
profess to be ignorant of his fate. But
from evidence the most reliable, when
connected with a well-connected chain
of circumstances, I am enabled to give
you a correct account of

T.iE DEATH OF THIS ROBBER CHIEF.

Between February 13 and 16, in
company with his Jidus Achates, Boss
Strong, Henry Berry Lowery was
ranging the country in the neighborhood
of Moss Neck in search of some persons
whom he had been informed were hunt-
ing him, while Steve and Tom Lowery
and Andrew Strong were stationed at a
rendezvous on Lumber River, near the
" new bridge." Abotit one and three-
quarter miles from Moss Nock station,
within short gunshot of the road leading
from Inman's Bridge to McNeill's mill,
they discovered in the bushes a newly
made " blind " (a place of concealment
or ambush made by intertwining the
branching of the thickly grown bushes.)

it was not then occupied, and Henry
Berry, believing it had been recently
made by one of his pursuers, who would
shortly return to it, ensconced himself
in it, while Boss made a blind for him-
self a short distance off covering tiie
road. But a few minutes after they had
placed themselves in their lespective
positions the report of a gun was heard
from Henry's hiding place, and when
Boss, who waited to hear a vvord from
his chief or an answering shot from an
enemy, cautiously approached the spot,
Henry Berry Lowery lay oii his back,
with one barrel of his shotijun discharc-
ed and his nose, forehead and the

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

WHOLE FRONT OK HIS HEAD BLOWN I horseback for the New Bridge. On the

I . , . ,, 1-^ . 1 , T-v 5)

OFF.

way 1 passed the " Devil's Den,'' ;i

desolate wild spot in the Back Swamp,

where is said to be one of the hiding

wiper showed he had been trying to pj^.^es of the bandits.

The broken ramrod and the missing

draw a load from his gun. Boss drew
the body into a thicket, and notified his
companions, who straightway buried
him where, in all human probability,
the eve of man will see liim never.

Thus perished this remarkable man, |
and his death marks the dissolution of |
this most formidable body of despera- j
does.' The large sum of money he was
said to be in posessioii of is also lost to
the country, for no member of the band,
not even Boss nor his wife, knew the
whereabouts of his treasure cliest. The
remainiu'^^ outlaws have made diligent
search, but as yet have had their labor
. for their pains. Henry Berry was said
to have had a good deal of money,
b*ides his share of the proceeds of the
Lumberton Bank, from which some
thirty thousand dollars were taken. It
appears to have been his habit of appro-
priating to his own use

THE LION'S SHARE OF ALL MONEY

taken, giving the subjects the other

booty.

But to resume the story of my life
among tt.e outlaws. A little after dark
on th^ evening of the day 1 met Andrew
Strong and Steve L iwery I returned to
Henry Berry's house, in pursuance of
his wife's invitation, to spend the night

there.

After supper Rhody said

I SHOULD SLEEP IN THE BED.

while she would make a coi^ch tor her-
self, help and family on the floor.

The next morning, after a breakfast
on the same chicken we had tried the

Our destination was Moss Neck,
where 1 wanted toniail some letters
and send some private despatches to the
telegraph office at Wilmingtcm, and they
wanted to

SEND THEIR MESSAGE TO THE
HERALD.

We heard the train east coming when
we were about a mile from the station,
and ran the whr)le distance from there.
They would iM)t go up to tbe train, nor
would they let me go until i promised
them solemnly, with my hand on my
heart, that I would not go off in it, and
would hand their despatch, as well as
my own, to the conductor.

From Moss Neck, with a young man
who had been taken piisoner by the
outlaws, when they captured the detec-
tive Saunders, but who now appeared
to be on very good terms witn them,
we went down the railroad about a mile
and then half a mile south into a " bay,"
where Saunder's '-camp" had been lo-
cated.

From tills desolate spot we returned
to Moss Neck, where

1 MET THOMAS LOWERY.

another of the outluws, and upon whose
head is set a price of $5,000. Tom
Lowery is five feet ten inches high,
strongly built, with a lighter complex-
ion than Steve, but darker than Henry
Berry. He has rather regular features,
a high forehead and the brightest eyes of
the three outlaws T met. He has a
short, black beard, and straight, black
hair, and is more refined in his appear-

°" , '""l f with a guide furnished bv ancc than Steve or Andrew Strong,

thff^riends of the outlaws, I started on' He was armed precisely as they, with

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

a rifle and two shotguns and a bolt full
of I e vol vers. He said he liad heard of
my j)resence in tlie neighborhood and
was glad to see me.

It being now about one o'clock we
were all natuiall} hungry, so Steve
bought a couple dozen of eggs fi'oin a
woman near by, who boiled thein for
him, and we went into the store at
Moss Neck to eat them, which work we
accomplished by cutting them in iialvts
with our knivfs, sprinkling coarse salt
on them and gulping down each hall
from its shell. I ate four, the remain-
der being devoured by the three out-
laws. In addition to the eggs we had
some

GINGER CAKE, CHEESE AND
WRETCiJED WHISKEY.

After dinner I was taken to McNeill's
mill, near Moss Neck, the place where
that Make (Malcolm) Sanderson was
killed, and where, within a few yards of
the formei', one of his murderers, John
Taylor, was subsequently punished.
The place was pointed out to me, and
the story of their respective deaths told
by Andrew Strong.

WHERE MAKE SANDERSON AND
JOHN TAYLOR WERE KILLED.

In September, 1S70, Andrew, who
up to that time had been charged with
no offence, and was then working at his
home, was called up from his bed at
about eleven in the night by a party of
over twenty men, who said they wanted
him to go along with them a little
ways. When he had dressed and gone
out to the party he found they had
another man (Make Sanderson) with
them. After they had gone about a
mile one of the party, McNeill, turned
to Andrew and said, " You'll never see
morning again," and upon his prisoner
asking why and what he had done was

! answered that he was a d — d nigger
and a spy for the Lowerys and so was
S;iiiderson, and they had determined to
kill them all.

On the road to Moss Neck they were
shot by John Taylor, to whom the pris-
oners made a scrong and passionate ap-
peal f)r mercy, t » which he replied,
" If all the mulatto blood in the country
was in you two and a movement of my
foot would send you to hell I would
make it." Soon after the prisoners were
tied together and led to a secluded spot
about a mile from Moss Neck, where
they were to die. Sanderson asked for
lime to pray, which, after some consul-
tation, was given him. In the midst of
his supplications for pardon hi- was in-
terrupted by a blow from a pistol and
told to hurry up and not to pray so
loud, as

GOD WOULD HEAR HIM ANYHOW.

"When he had finished they were taken
to a proper distance from their captors
to be shot at, when Andrew, who had
been working at his bonds ever since
they were put on him, broke them sud-
denly and rushed for the woods, fol-
lowed by the shots of his enemies.

Make Sanderson's hody was found
the next morning near McNeill's mill-
pond riddled with bullets. It was said
he was standing on a plank over the
race, and at the first fire fell into the
water still alive, and crawling out on
the land below was shot on the ground
where his mangled body vras found.

For this murder John Taylor was
arrested, but held to bail in the sum of
$500. When H. B. Lowery heard this
he remarked :

" We mulattoes must carry out our
own laws: I will kill John Taylor,"
and on the morning of January 14,
1871, with a company of soldiers with-
in 200 yards of him, he and Boss Strong

THE SWAiMP OUTLAWS.

fil

rose from the road, a hundred yards
from where Sanderson hud been killed
the fall befi)re, and at a distance of less
then ten yards shot the top of his head
off.

AN' OUTLAW CONCERT.

After Andrew had toM nie this his-
tory and had shown me where Sander-
son and Ta\ lor were killed, and where
Henry and Buss were ambushed, we re-
turned to the store, where for n couple
of hours in a back room Steve and
Andr 'W " picked " the banjo, played on
the violin and saiijj negro melodies to
an appreciative and enthusiastic audi-
ence. Steve sings very well, and the
peculiar airs with which he was accom-
panied on the banjo were novel and ex-
ceedingly pleasarit.

A LODGING PAID FOR.

When we fiitally left Moss Neck it
was for the purpose of finding a place
for me to spend the night. About three
miles up the railroad we came to the
residence of Tom Chavis to well-to-do
mulatto, where Steve engaired lodnrinnr
for me, telling them to give me a good
supper and allow me to retire to bed
immediately after, for I was " clean done
worried out, " and he would pay the
"bill ; and, fixing a point to meet me the
next day, the outlaws strode away to
ward the swamps.

THE PRESS ON THE OUTLAWS
AND HERALD ENTERPRISE.

Our rural friends the Southern edi-
tors, are at it again. Past all thsir
comprehension seems the fact that a
New York journal could have a corres-
pondent in Africa and one amonjr the
Carolina out'aws of the same time.
Here, for instance, is an enlightpned
little rag from Mississippi, the Pilot.

Hear what it flutters. ^ord help r
country with such pilots, although ihey
do boast of being " official journal of
the United States."

THROUGH THICK AND THIN.

(F m the Duily Mississippi Pilot, Miircli 22).
One of the New York Herald cor-
respondents was r< cently killed while
searching for Dr. Livincfslcjne, in the
interior of Africa, and now another has
fallen into the hands of the Swamp An-
gels, led by the bandit, Stephen Low-
ery, in North Carolina. The Lowerys
say they will not kill him; only inter-
view him until they prove whether he
is an impostor or not. Can't the
Herald spread this on a little thicker?
It seems to us remarkably " thin."

THE HATE OF COLOR.

When the bull-fighters of Seville wish
to enrage the plunging toro they flash a
piece of red cloth before his eyes, and
straightway he becomes mad. When
you wish to enrage a grand old unpro-
gressive, hardshell democrat of the
Soutiiern stripe show him som.ething
black, and the rabies will follow direct-
ly after. The following is the painful
result of a Newark man finding out that
the Lowerys were colored !

IF THEY WERE ONLY WHE

(Fn.in the Newark (N. J.,) Daily Journal,
March 25 )

The Swamp Angels are not yet ex-
tinguished, and it is even a matter of
doubt to the present time whether the
leader is dead or has run away or will
yet turn up in some fresh raid upon
society. Would it not be well for
Grant to extend a " protectorate" over
Robeson county? The Herald re-
1 porter has not vet been heard from,
I and when a whiteman, in the legitimat*

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

pursuit of an honorable busines, cannot
pass safely through our own country,
we think it wouKl be bi-^tter to postpone
a protectorate over Mexico until we
have regulated matters somewhat bet-
ter at home. Had Henry Berrv Low-
ery, and his gmg been white men
would they have been permitted to ex-
ist? We pause for a reply.

Here now is a southern man, who at-
tends to his business of news collecting.
We lilve this. He reports that the
Hkrald correspondent was in danger,
and we are thankful to liim : —

BRAVE RHODY LOWERY.

(From the Wiliiiin;^t()n (N. C.) Journal, Marcli
24.)

The wife of Henry Berry Low ery,
the outlaw chief, was at Moss Neck de-
pot yesterday as the train passed that
point, whither she came for the purpose
of delivering a despatch from Hender-
son, to be sent north from this city.
She states that the correspondent was
at Lowery's cabin, near Moss Neck, on
Friilay evening, about six o'clock, when
Tom Lowery, Stephen Lowery, and
Andrew Strong entered it and roughly
told him to get up and go with tiiem.
He told them that he was ready ; but
first asked permission to send off a de-
spatch to his paper, which was accorded
him, when he wrote the despatch and
gave it to the Lowery female, who, as
we have seen, fulfilled her promise to
deliver it lo the conductor of the tr.iin.
Henderson then accompanied the out-
laws, bound for the recesses of Scuffle-
town swamp.

It was reported here yesteruay, the
report coming from Siioe Heel, that
Henderson had been killed by the out-
laws, but the report is generally dis-
credited.

WHO IS TO BLAME?

Here is another solution of the ques«-
tion. The Edgefield Advertiser said it
was Grant ; llie Raleigh Era said it
w;is the Ku Klux ; the Wilmington
Star now says it is Governor Caldwell.
Wonderful ! It admits that he sent
down his Adjutant General, but forgets
to mention that the cowardice of the
population of Robeson county made his
efforts ineffectual. They can only tell
half truths down there.

(From the Wilmington Star, M;ircli 24.)

CALDWELL AND LOWERY

That Henry Berry Lowery and his
little band of robbers and cutthroats
should, for so long a time, set law and
civilization at defiance — should pillage,
outrage and murder with un paralleled
impunity — affords food for reflection
upon the sort of government we have,
and more especially gives ample oppor
tunity to know the men who })retend to
administer that government in the in-
terest of justice, of law, of humanity.

It is a melancholv thoujiht that is
forced upon the intelligent North Caro-
linian, that the government of his native
State is inadequate to protect him from
the ravages of the highway robber and
the bullet of the midnight assassin.

Low, indeed, is the condition of that
people Avho are in daily jeipardy of life
and property. Terrible is the state of
that society that must thus live in con-
stant peril.

We charge it upon Governer Cald-
well — and his conduct sustains the
charge — that he has been lax, lukewarm
and careless in this matter of putting
down the Lowerys.

We charge it upon him, that while
innocent blood of good men appeared to
him from the swamps and plains of
Robeson and invoked high heaven for

THE SWAMP OJTLAWS.

vengeance he lifced scarce a little fingii
to arrest the dangerous course of the
assassins, was diiml) to piteous entreaty,
heeded not the cries of consternation
tliat went up to Iliin from a suffering,
outraged, imperilled people.

We charge these things home upon
the Governor of North Carolina, and
the people know that the facts sustain
the charge.

He was appealed to for a long while
in vain.

He was appealed to persistently, and
after taking much time he sent his Ad-
jutant General to the scene on the out-
rages.

The result was a failure.
When he should have renewed ajiain
and again his i-'xertions to captui-e or
kill the outlaws he refused altogether to
act.

But to-day, in North Carolina, not a
hundred miles from Wilmington, we
have a band of men, not a half ilozen in
number, who are open and notorious,
desperadoes, killing whom they list
without the ft'ar of punishment before:
their eyes, going at the dead hour of
the night into towns,capturing iron safes
and robbing them of their contents — a
mere handful of men, riding roughshod
over county. State and federal authori-
ties, with a iionchalance and bravad)
that would do credit to the daring and
subtle Bedouin of the desert. I

Here, in the Litter part of the nine-
teenth century, in a land that boasts of the
excellency of its laws and the security
afforded by its government, what do we
see?

Alas ! it would be well to be blind,
if blindness brought contentment. But
free citizens, with souls in their bodies,
cannot shut their eyes to the attrocious
violations of law, peace and order in
Robeson county. i

^len, with the common feelings of
humanity — individuals ujion whom one
ray of the sun of civilization has shone
— must experience pity, shame, and in-
dignation at the spectacle of a petty
gang (;f mulattoes committing act after
act of the most fiendisii outra<:e of law
deed after deed of the most abandoned
savagery, perilling the iii.iustrial inter-
ests of a whole section, filling the pub-
lic mind with ap{>rehension and terror,
and doing these diabolical crimes with
almost the certainty of non-interference,
if not protection, by a radical adminis-
tration.

Upon the head of Tod R. Caldwell
rests the responsibility, the terrible re-
S[)onsibility of the deeds ol" these mur-
derous villains. Let him, and iiim
alone, bear the blame and reap the deep
curses of a>: outraged, afflicted people !
It will not do for his partisans to say
that he could not suppress these pitiful
outlaws. He did not try to put them
down. He would have shown his
humanity and his efficiency as a Govern-
or had this band been composed of
white men and his party had ciiosen to
dub them Kii Klux. Oh, yes! What
calling out of militia a la Holden j
What making of requisitions upon
Grant ! What an upstir of loyalty !
What an outburst of patriotic zeal
would there have been had Lowi rv
been a Ku Klux ! Pity ! nitv ! So
much party capital is lost! Long ago
would the little band have gone to the
criminal's bourne, and the very name
of Lowery have been a stench in loyal
Northern nostrils, and a new hate of the
South been added to the catalogue now
long as the list of ships in Homer.

Again we pile up the counts in our
bill of indictment. We charge it upon
Governor Caldwell that he can meddle
in law-making, can make himself Legia-

THE SWAMP OUTLAWS.

lature and Supreme Court, can starve
Penitentiary convicts and drive inmates
of the Asylums from the place of medi-
cal aid b:icli to their homes. W^e charge
it upon Governor Caldwell that he is
foiivard and meddlesome and obstinate
and cruel where these virtuous and
praiseworthy quualities of his head
and heart can be bestowed upon con-
servative enemies. We charge it upon
Governor Caldwell that he so despises
our party that he cannot in his official
conduct do members of that party any
justice.

Governor Caldwell that he does not
make a hearty and an earnest effort to
stop the reign of lawlessness, rapine and
murder around Scuffletown and Moss
Neck. We charge it upon Governor

Caldwell that he is callous and brutally
indifferent to the higiier instincts of
humanity, that he is active only in
belief of party, zealous only when party
exigency requires zeal ; that he would
long since have stopped the Robeson
outrages if the Outlaws had been con-
servative whites instead of radical blacks.
These charges are pi-efuni'd b}' the
whole body of intelligeur, lau-abid'ng
people of the State whom he disgraces
and outrages. If he quails not before
them, if their indignant voices move not
his rough, fretful, splciu-tic and sav-
•diie nature, then is he sunk and sod-
den in the lowest pit of degradation,
and there is no hope for him, then is he
forever damned in the estimation of all
good and peaceable citizens.

THE END.

nSToTE.— Manv of tlie foregoing articles are introaucecl merely to explain how such
a state of tliiiio-s"'coukl pos^bly exist in a civilized country. Tlie fierce hate of politic
cariactionists°entirely blindin;^ them to tiie disgrace and injury inflicted upon rheir
common country by the toleration of .^Yrong deeds whether perpetrated by one i^ ass
Cr another.l

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By the Autlior of *' Webster's Practical Letter Writer," "Webster's Reciter," etc.

ABSTEACT OF OONTEJSTTS :

Preface,

What is Public Business ?

Rules of Order

Slotions — how made.

Chiirman— his requisites ; necessity
of his impartiality ; dignity re-
quisite:

The Meeting — order necessary.

Points of tJider.

Debate, its rules and usages.

Speakers — their rights and duties.

Arrranffing for a Meetin.:.

The " Call," lorms and advertising.

A New Club — call to form.

Alma Mater — call for a meeting', to
organize.

Boys in Blue — call to organize a
Social Society.

Committee of Arrangements, how
arranged.

Caucus and caucusing, explanation
of terms.

Conventions — how composed.

Town Meetings — how called.

Ward Meetings.

Committees.

Itesolutions and "Motions — now pre-
sented ; form of.

Amendments — lorra of ; Examp e;
(if.

Rules as to striking out and insert-
ing words.

Divisions— explanation of the term ;
examples of.

Yeas and Nays— rules, how fixed ;
how taken ; calling the ; when a
vote may be changed.

A Ciuorum — what constitutes; usag-
es in American Legislatures ;
linglish House of Commons.

Speaking — general observations on.

Points of Order and Appeals — mode
of making; form of making.

Debate— when a speaker may speak
twice ; when a Chairman may
speak ; every member has a right
to speak once ; courtesies of.

Questions- rules in relation to.

Privileged Questions — how they af-

fect the regular business ; classifi-
cation of motions.

Committee of the Whole— objects
of organization of.

Call of the House— rule? relating to ;
duties of sergeant at arms ; closing
the doors.

Adjournment— motion to adjourn ;
when debatable.

By-Laws ot Citizens Central Com-
mitte: PLemarks on ditto ; Sus-
pending Order ot business; Put-
ting Motions in Writing ; Movtd
by two Members ; Stated by the
Chair ; After the Previous Ques-
tion; without Debate or Explana-
tion ; Member on the floor ; Re-
consideration ; Five Minutes rule ;
Point of Order and Appeal ; Prev-
ious Questiim ; Chairman not to
speak ; Reports of Committees ;
Preliminary Debate ; Retiring
committees; Order and Harmony ;
Suspen.sion of Rules,

Forms and Formulas — On making
Quotations ; on the duties of Citi-
zens in a Republic ; Remarks on
Government; Memorial to Con-
gress on Neutral Rights.

Farmer's Club — Formation of; Con-
stitution ot.

Insurance Club — By-Laws of.

^ ocial Club — By-Laws of.

Form of Legislative Bill.

British Parliament — Law and prac-
tice of.

Congress of United States — Forma-
tion of; U. S. Senate ; U. S. House
of Representatives ; Concrress in
Session ; Acts of Congress; Powers
of Congress; Passace of Laws;
Powers ot the U. S. Senate ; Pow-
ers of the U. S. House of Repre-
sentatives.

Business Rules of TJ. S Senate— Of
the Vice-President ; Order in the
Chamber ; Debate Regulated ;
Calling to Order ; Yeas and Nays ;
Reconsideration ; Vice-President's

Vote ; President Pro Tern.; Bills
and Resolutions ; Second Read-
ing ; Appointment of Compiittees;
Reference to Committee ; Two-
Thirds Bills.

Busiu' ss Rules of IT. S. House of
Representatives — Of the Sper.Ker ;
Speaker Pro Te.a.; Appointing
Committees ; Preserving Order ;
Motion to Adjourn ; Previous
Question ; Attendance of Mem-
bers; Callof theHousr ; Introduc-
tion of Bills ; ("ommittce of the
Whole ; CUiange of Order.

Joint Business Rules of the two
Houses.

Rules of the Senate of New York
Relating to Order — Of the Presi-
dent; Committee of the "Whole ;
ilotions to be written and read ;
Division of Questions ; Debate
Restricted ; Calling to Order ;
Alterations of Rules.

Rules and Order of the New York
Assembly— Speaker's Powers and
Duties ; Order and Decorum ;
Priority of Business ; Committee
of the "Wliole ; Absence of Quo-
rum ; Record of Action ; Yeas
and Nays ; Alteration and Rules.

Joint Rules of the Senate and As-
sembly—Reciprocal Action ; Con-
ference Committees ; Ri ceding
from Action ; Refusing to Recede ;
Joint Committees.

Routine of a Business Meeting —
The Quorum, the Presiding Offi-
cer, the Secretai-y.

Masonic Rules of Order— Grand
Lodge of State of New York.

Parliainentary Authorities.

Parliamentary Summary — Rules,
Practice and Precedents : Im-
peachment ; Judgment ; Legis-
lative Bills ; Reports taken up ;
Disagreement and Conferei»ce ;
Amendment and Commitment.

Constitution of the United Sta, 3s.
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