of the night he drunkenly demanded Biggs join the gang or he would kill him. Fearful of McLauchlin, Biggs waited until he had fallen asleep, and then shot him with his own pistol. Biggs proceeded to Lumberton to report the killing, led authorities to the body, collected a $400 bounty, and left the county. The Lowry Gang later learned that Biggs had found work at a lumber mill in Abbottsburg, Bladen County. To avenge McLauchlin's death, they attempted a raid, but were spotted near the county line. A posse was raised to stop the gang and Biggs escaped. Deployment of federal troops Governor Holden decided that there was a state of war in Robeson, and at his request federal troops under Captain Evan Thomas were dispatched to "aid the civil authority". Company A of the 4th Regiment U.S. Artillery arrived in Lumberton on November 22, 1870. Thomas immediately headed for Scuffletown to find the Lowry Gang. He reported searching "the whole country for 30 miles" but found nothing. Thomas wrote to General Irvin McDowell to ask for permission to declare martial law to arrest Lowry family members, but the general declined and ordered him to serve "under the direction of the civil authority, and as a part of its posse." Thus denied, Thomas posted his men at various stations along the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad and the situation in the county calmed, the Lowry Band seemingly wary of engaging the troops. The Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad Company, though it shuttled federal troops, tried to keep armed bounty hunters off of its trains and strived for neutrality in the overall conflict, not seeking to become a target of the outlaws. Some of its black crew members were reported to have warned Scuffletown when troops were on board. Violence resumed on January 14, 1871. Several hundred yards away from the federal encampment at the Moss Neck rail depot, Henry Berry Lowry, accompanied by Boss Strong, rose from an embankment on the side of a road and shot John Taylor through the head. Lowry then ran to the body, took $50 and ran with Strong into a nearby swamp. A sergeant and several enlisted men gave chase but quickly lost sight of him. Thomas' company, accompanied by Sheriff McMillan and a posse, resumed the pursuit but were unsuccessful. Also that month, a group of bounty hunters stopped a buggy on Old