Western Detective Charles Siringo 1928 Inglewood Park Cemetery

Charles Angelo Siringo (February 7, 1855—October 18, 1928), was an American lawman, detective, and agent for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Early life

Siringo was born in Matagorda County, Texas to an Irish immigrant mother and an Italian immigrant father from Piedmont.[1][2] He attended public school until reaching the age of 15, when he started working on local ranches as a cowboy.[3]

In March, April and May 1877, Siringo was in Dodge City, Kansas during an alleged confrontation between Clay Allison and Wyatt Earp, Earp was a Deputy Marshal at the time. Earp later claimed, after Allison's death in 1887, that he and Bat Masterson had forced Allison to back down from an impending confrontation. Siringo, however, later gave a written account of that incident which contradicted Earp's claim, stating that Earp never came into contact with Allison, and that two businessmen, cattleman Dick McNulty and the owner of the Long Branch Saloon, Chalkley Beeson, in Dodge City actually defused the situation.

After taking part in several cattle drives, Siringo stopped herding to settle down, get married (1884), and open a merchant business in Caldwell, Kansas. He began writing a book, entitled A Texas Cowboy; Or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony. A year later, it was published, to wide acclaim, and became one of the first true looks into life as a cowboy written by someone who had actually lived the life.

Pinkerton service

In 1886, bored with the mundane life of a merchant, Siringo moved to Chicago and joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency. He used gunman Pat Garrett's name as a reference to get the job, having met Garrett several years before.

He was immediately assigned several cases, which took him as far north as Alaska, and as far south as Mexico City. He began operating undercover, a relatively new technique at the time, and infiltrated gangs of robbers and rustlers, making over one hundred arrests.[4]

With 2,000 active agents and 30,000 reserves, the forces of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency were larger than the nation’s standing army in the late-19th century. The Pinkertons provided services for management in labor disputes, including armed guards and secret operatives like Charles A. Siringo. A Texas native and former cowboy, Siringo moved to Chicago in 1886, where first-hand observation of the city’s labor conflict (which he attributed to foreign anarchism) moved him to join the Pinkertons.

In the early 1890s he found himself assigned to office work in the Denver office of the agency, work which he greatly despised. During that time, he worked with noted Pinkerton agent, gunman, and later assassin Tom Horn. He greatly admired Horn's talents and skills in tracking down suspects, but reflected later that Horn had a dark side that could easily be accessed when need be.

In 1892, Siringo was assigned to a case in Idaho, where he worked undercover to get information against labor union officials. Despite his despising labor union officials, he later stood against a lynch mob to protect attorney Clarence Darrow from being hanged.

In the late 1890s, posing as "Charles L. Carter," an alleged gunman on the run from the law for a murder, he infiltrated outlaw Butch Cassidy's Train Robbers Syndicate. For over a year, using information he would gather, he severely hampered the operations of Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, but without a large number of arrests. After they committed the now famous train robbery near Wilcox, Wyoming, in which they robbed a Union Pacific train, he again found himself assigned to capture the Wild Bunch.[4] On that case, Siringo often coordinated with Tom Horn, who was by that time working for large cattle companies as a stock detective ("hired gun"), but who also was retained by the Pinkerton Agency on contract to assist in the robbery investigation. Horn was able to obtain vital information from explosives expert Bill Speck that revealed to investigators who the suspects were who had killed Sheriff Josiah Hazen,[5] who had been shot and killed during the pursuit of the robbers.[6]

Several members of the gang were captured as a result of information Siringo gathered, including the capture of Kid Curry, who escaped but was again cornered and killed during a shootout with law enforcement in Colorado. It was Siringo's information that help track him down on both occasions. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid both fled to South America, feeling their luck was running out in United States. They were later allegedly killed by Bolivian police in a shootout there following a mine payroll robbery. During the work on the Wilcox Train Robbery, he first came into contact with lawman Joe Lefors, who later would arrest Tom Horn for a murder that Horn has since been largely vindicated for. Siringo crossed paths with Lefors several years later while working other cases. Siringo found Lefors incompetent, at best, and greatly despised him.

Siringo retired in 1907, and began writing another book, entitled Pinkerton's Cowboy Detective. The Pinkerton Detective Agency held up publication for two years, feeling it violated their confidentiality agreement that Siringo had signed when he was hired and objecting to the use of their name. Siringo gave in, and deleted their name from the book title, instead writing two separate books, entitled A Cowboy Detective and Further Adventures of a Cowboy Detective.[4]

Angry with the agency after it sabotaged the publication of his cowboy memoirs, Siringo published Two Evil Isms: Pinkertonism and Anarchism, a revealing chronicle of Pinkerton methods and deception. Siringo wrote that he had been instructed to commit voter fraud in the re-election campaign of Colorado Governor James Peabody. Siringo stated, "I voted eight times, as per [Pinkerton supervisor] McParland's orders — three times before the same election judges."[7] The election was unique due to fraud by Democrats and Republicans, resulting in Colorado having three different governors seated during the course of one day.

The Pinkerton Agency once again succeeded in suppressing the book. They attempted to have Siringo prosecuted for libel, requesting extradition from his ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico to Chicago. However, the governor of New Mexico denied the extradition request. Pinkerton operatives bought up all copies available at newsstands and obtained a court order confiscating the book’s plates. In the book, Siringo (who, even when alienated from the Pinkertons, never displayed any sympathy for the labor movement) described among other things, how he infiltrated and undermined miners' unions in northern Idaho during the 1892 Coeur d’Alene strike.

In 1916, Siringo began working as a New Mexico Ranger to assist in the capture of numerous rustlers causing problems in the area, holding that position until 1918. His health began to fail, and his ranch was failing due to his having been away for some time. He moved to Los Angeles, where he became somewhat of a celebrity due to his well publicized exploits. He renewed his relationship with Wyatt Earp during this period.[8] In 1927 he released another book, Riata and Spurs, a composite of his first two autobiographies. The Pinkerton Agency again halted publication, resulting in a whittled down and revised copy being released the following year, with many fictional accounts rather than the true accounts that Siringo had envisioned.

Death

Siringo died in Altadena, California on October 18, 1928. He was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California. His activities remain some of the first examples of the use of undercover work in the capture of fugitives.

In popular culture

In Sergio Sollima's Faccia a faccia (1967) (a fictionalized) Siringo is portrayed by William Berger.

Charles Siringo also appears as a character in Leif Enger's So Brave, Young, and Handsome (2008; ISBN 978-0-87113-985-6).

Siringo Road, a major thoroughfare on the south side of the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is named for the former detective and writer.

Mike Blakely's original composition and song titled, "Charlie Siringo," was about the life of Charlie Siringo.

Actor Brad Johnson portrayed Siringo in a 1994 made-for-TV fim, "Siringo."

Actor Dennis Farina portrayed Siringo in a 1995 made-for-TV film, Bonanza: Under Attack.

In the Leverage episode "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job," the character Eliot Spencer (played by Christian Kane) dresses up as Siringo for a murder mystery costume party.

Bibliography

Works by

— (1885). A Texas Cowboy: Or, Fifteen Years On The Hurricane Deck of A Spanish Pony. Chicago: M. Umbdenstock and Company. ISBN 0-14-043751-7.

— (1912). A Cowboy Detective: A True Story of Twenty-Two Years With A World-Famous Detective Agency. Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company. ISBN 0-8032-9189-2. Retrieved 2009-07-08.

—; Gifford Pinchot (1912). Riata and Spurs: The Story Of A Lifetime Spent In The Saddle As Cowboy And Ranger. ISBN 1-4179-1067-4.

— (1915). Two Evil Isms, Pinkertonism And Anarchism: By A Cowboy Detective Who Knows, As He Spent Twenty-Two Years In The Inner Circle Of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. ISBN 1-4297-6551-8.

— (1920). A History of "Billy the Kid". Charles A. Siringo. Retrieved 2009-07-08.

Works about

Lamar, Howard R. (2005). Charlie Siringo's West: An Interpretive Biography. University Of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-3669-8.

Peavy, Charles D. (1967). Charles A. Siringo: A Texas Picaro. Austin, Texas: Steck-Vaughn Company. 2019759

Pingenot, Ben E. (1989). Siringo: The True Story Of Charles A. Siringo, Texas Cowboy, Longhorn Trail Driver, Private Detective, Rancher, New Mexico Ranger and Author. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 0-89096-381-9.

Blum, Howard (2011). The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush. Crown Publishers. ISBN 978-0-307-46172-8.

References

1.^ "Charlie Siringo". Retrieved 16 April 2011.

2.^ "Italian American Contributions".

3.^ "Siringo, Charles Angelo". The Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved 2009-07-08.

4.^ Siringo - Thrilling Detective.

5.^ Josiah Hazen - Officer Down Memorial Page

6.^ Wilcox Train Robbery - TomHorn.com

7.^ Martin, MaryJoy, (2004) The Corpse On Boomerang Road: Telluride's War On Labor 1899-1908 Montrose, Colorado: Western Reflections. p.267. ISBN 978-1-932738-02-5

8.^ Dworkin, Mark. "Tombstone History Archives - Charlie Siringo, Letter Writer". Retrieved 16 April 2011.