William McKee EvansÆ To Die For: The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerillas of Reconstruction recounts the story of Henry Berry Lowry, a Lumbee Indian of North Carolina, responsible for killing a Confederate official, escaping punishment for his crime, and leading an ongoing guerilla war to avoid working as conscripted Confederate labor. The story of Henry Berry, ôHenry Bear,ö Lowry is also a story of the Lumbee Indians in EvansÆ hands, a people whose story survives the Civil War but succumbs to the encroachment of opportunistic whites. Lowry mysteriously disappeared but Reising (p. 87) maintains ôHenry Bearö a symbolic icon of the Lumbee people: ôOver a hundred years ago he emerged as their hope and their hero, and today he remains a symbol of their commitments and ideals.ö
EvansÆ book provides a number of useful features that make the story of the Lumber River Indians and Henry Lowry come alive. He provides a new foreword to this edition, including along with it his foreword from the original edition. To Die Game also provides a number of illustrations that help add to the mood, tone, and recreation of the settings and environment in which Lowry and his gang operated. Such illustrations include one of the Lumber River Indians lands, one of Lowry, and one with Lowry at the helm of his gang. The author also provides an essay at the end of the work that goes into depth about sources used in its construction. These can be quite useful, such as the explanation that Lowry during the 19th century was spelled with multiple variations from Lowrie to Lawry. The Lumbees were also known as Lurebees.
The actual story of Lowry provides a look at how the Civil War was an immediate threat to the survival of the Lumbees but not the only one. For the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction relied upon inexpensive or conscripted labor and the Lumbees had been slowly losing their rights and lands since legislation des...