Charles a Siringo

A Cowboy Detective Charles a Siringo

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