83. Escambia County's First Black Outlaw (Part VI)

The black gunman was shrewd, cunning, and as crafty a fugitive as the lawmen in these parts had ever tangled with. Time after time the posse's passed by William Samuel Ward’s front door step as they searched high and low for the lone bandit. When the local law enforcement officers were unable to apprehend him the railroad bosses finally stepped in and hired a force of special agents to track him down much like Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang out West. But they had about as much luck with Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as they did with Railroad Bill. In April 1894, Bill was hitching a ride on an eastbound freight train heading toward the junction at Flomaton. An alert conductor recognized him somewhere along the stretch through Baldwin County and slammed the railroad car door shut and locked it. His plans were to keep him locked up until he could turn the wily bandit over to the Flomaton sheriff upon arrival at the station. However, Bill hadn’t read the script and had no intention of being turned over to anybody. H

e calmly took his rifle and shot the lock off the door from the inside and then jumped off the train, wounding the flagman as he left. As the pursuing lawmen began to press him harder in May 1895 he became involved in a shootout with a deputy from the small town of Blount Springs, Florida. The deputy and his four comrades surrounded the house where Bill was sleeping hoping to catch him unawares. But suddenly the outlaw came out firing with both pistols blazing leaving a deputy wounded and Bill still a wanted fugitive.

On March 6, 1895, an engineer and his conductor on one of the freight trains bound for Atmore found Railroad Bill asleep under the Tensas water tank where they had stopped to take on water. They silently crept up on him and took his rifle and one of his pistols that was lying on the ground next to him. When they awakened him, Bill stood up suddenly, took three quick steps backwards and pulled his other pistol. He ordered them to drop their weapons then fired several rounds at their feet to emphasis his point. He told them all to get back up on the train and pull out of Tensas and he would go along for the ride. But somewhere along the way he jumped off and disappeared into the forest leaving his would be captors none the wiser.