William Augustus Bowles, a notorious old boy, so the legend goes, and patron pirate of the Billy Bowlegs’ Festival and Krewe of Bowlegs was born in 1763 on the Maryland frontier.  At the age of 13, he joined the Loyalists Corps to fight against the American rebels.  Two years later he was sent to Pensacola to join the British forces.  He was commissioned an ensign in the British navy at 16 years old.  After the war he rebelled against military life, insulted a British officer and went into hiding with the Creek Indians (so the legend goes).  He married a tribeswoman, a chief’s daughter and in 1781 was welcomed back by the British to help battle the Spanish at Pensacola.  During that time, the British, Spanish and the Americans were maneuvering for control of the Gulf Shores and its shipping lanes.  Believing himself destined to command instead of obeying orders, Bowlegs gathered a force of a “couple of hundred plundering Indians, relics from the American Army and white banditti”.