Books with author Charlie Siringo

When legendary Charlie Siringo wrote this classic work, he was only thirty years old and had already spent half that life as a cowboy. With enduring wit, he tells the tale of long cattle drives, small-town beauties, meetings with Billy the Kid, and growing up on the Texas frontier.In plain language you'll read what it was like to live on the "hurricane deck of a Spanish pony" for months on end, earning enough to head into town and have a good time. Chris-crossing the Lone Star state, he lived a vanishing way of life. After only a few years of setting down, he was back in the saddle as a Pinkerton detective, a career he tells in later books.Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the westward expansion that changed the country forever.For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

Charles A. Siringo's dramatic and action-packed memoirs about life in the old American West are published here in full. As well as for his time as a lawman, Siringo was famous for epitomizing the spirit of adventure and free roaming that characterized North America during the 19th century. Born and raised on the Western frontier, it was through his years in the West that Siringo learned the rural life of a cowboy. By the time he published this autobiography in 1885 at the age of thirty, Siringo was an ambitious and confident fellow - "money, and lots of it", he declares, is the prime reason he wrote his memoirs. The book begins with Charles Siringo's account of his early life, as the son of immigrants; his father an Italian and his mother Irish. We follow his early life in and around Dodge City, learning the ways of the cattle hand and witnessing a few remarkable sights along the way. Eventually, Siringo sets up shop as a merchant, where he found the time to author this memoir. Perhaps the most vivid highlight among these recollections regards Billy the Kid, one of the most notorious outlaws to ever emerge in the West. Something of a nemesis for the law-abiding Siringo, the pursuit of Billy occupies several chapters of this book. In 1886, the year after this autobiography appeared, Siringo would enroll in the Pinkertons: bored with cowboy life, it was as a detective working undercover that his abilities were truly realized.

"...During that spring of 1880 the Chisholm trail was impassible for large herds, as 'fool hoe-men' had squatted all over it..."Siringo, "an old stove-up 'cow puncher,'" has written in "A Lone Star Cowboy" an account of his 50 years' experience on the great Western cattle ranges as Cowboy, Detective and New Mexico Ranger--- on every cow trail in the Wooly Old West, spanning Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.Now that the cowboy is almost extinct outside the movie lots, those who knew him as he really was are beginning to correct the false impressions that have been conveyed by the flood of cowboy fiction and Wild West films. Here is given the true story of many thrilling adventures on mountain and plain, among moonshiners, cattle thieves, tramps, dynamiters, and other strong arm men, when the cowboys, buffalo hunters, and Indians had room to come and go, before the wire fences cut off the trails. His story includes first-hand accounts of his encounters with some '' Bad'' Cowboys, such as '' Billy the Kid," Wess Harding and '' Kid Curry.''Siringo introduces the book, stating: "This volume is to take the place of 'A Texas Cowboy'. Since its first publication, in 1885, nearly a million copies have been sold. In this, 'A Lone Star Cowboy,' much cattle history is given which has never before been published."It is a cow-boy's book; lively, spirited, energetic, slangy, and coarse; a book with a great deal of courage, adventure, roughness, and incident; a book which gives a life-like picture of cattle raising; and one that is full of the flavor of the " Wild West," but which is rude company for people with the tastes and refinements of civilization. “Among the enduring western master storytellers is Charlie Siringo, cowboy, detective, author, whose career and writings still live in the psyche of millions of westerners today.” Howard Roberts LamarCow-boys will read it as it is with zest; the more refined and sensitive "higher grade of readers" may protest that it has not been purged of its sins against grammar and good manners. It has an underlying substance which is excellent.Charles Angelo Siringo (1855 – 1928), was a Cowboy, New Mexico Ranger, Justice of the Peace, detective and agent for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency stationed in the West out of Denver. His first book A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony was published in 1885, establishing his reputation as a writer selling over a million copies. Nearly 25 years later he updated "A Texas Cowboy" by publishing his 1919 book "A Lone Star Cowboy" which includes not only his career as a cowboy but also a western detective cleaning up the Wild West and much cattle history which had never before been published.ContentsI. MY FIRST COWBOY EXPERIENCE. TWO YEARS IN YANKEE-LAND, AND THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANSII. SHOT AND WOUNDED IN THE KNEE A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE IN A GREAT STORM ON THE GULF COAST OF TEXASIII. A TRIP UP THE CHISHOLM TRAIL TO KANSAS. A LONELY RIDE THROUGH THE INDIAN NATION.IV. CAPTURING A BAND OF MEXICAN THIEVES. A HERD OF BUFFALO LEAPS OVER MY HEAD. V. A TRIP TO CHICAGO AS COW-PUNCHER. MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH OUTLAW "BILLY THE KID."VI. AN ELEVEN HUNDRED MILE HORSEBACK RIDE DOWN THE CHISHOLM TRAIL. I BOSS A HERD OF STEERSVII. "BILLY THE KID'S" CAPTURE. I ESCAPED ASSASSINATION BY A SCRATCH.VIII. A 3000 MILE HORSE-BACK RIDE. A TRUE ACCOUNT OF "BILLY THE KID'S ESCAPE, AND DEATH.IX. I BECOME MERCHANT IN CALDWELL, KANSAS. HISTORY OF THE OPENING OF OKLAHOMA TO SETTLEMENT.X. A VISIT TO MY OLD STAMPING GROUND IN SOUTHERN TEXAS. THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE STARTING, AND NAMING OF THE OLD CHISHOLM CATTLE TRAILXI. A BLOOD SPATTERED ROAD IN NEW MEXICO. I SERVE TWO YEARS AS NEW MEXICO RANGER.

"One of the chief molders of the cowboy image was Charles A. Siringo, a small thin but fearless Texan." -Charlie Siringo's West (2005)"Siringo proved to be a masterful bloodhound with an incredible record of getting his man." - Man-Hunters of the Old West (2017) Charlie 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.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 opened 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.

"That was the cowboy's Bible when I was growing up." - Will Rogers In 1885, Charlie Siringo introduced himself to the world as "an old stove-up cowpuncher" who had just spent "fifteen years on the hurricane deck of a Spanish pony." That's how he described himself on the title page of his book, A Texas Cowboy. It was the first the first time a real Texas cowboy had told his own story in his own words between the covers of a book. A Texas Cowboy reads like Charlie Siringo telling you his story in person. And he tells you all about: cowboying on the great cattle drives, working as a range detective, meeting and pursuing Billy the Kid, falling in love with beautiful maidens (on a routine basis) and getting shot at (also on a routine basis). Reading Siringo is like a chat with an old friend.

When legendary Charlie Siringo wrote this classic work, he was only thirty years old and had already spent half that life as a cowboy. With enduring wit, he tells the tale of long cattle drives, small-town beauties, meetings with Billy the Kid, and growing up on the Texas frontier. In plain language you'll read what it was like to live on the "hurricane deck of a Spanish pony" for months on end, earning enough to head into town and have a good time. Chris-crossing the Lone Star state, he lived a vanishing way of life. After only a few years of setting down, he was back in the saddle as a Pinkerton detective, a career he tells in later books. Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the westward expansion that changed the country forever. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

"A Texas Cowboy" subtitled as "Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony" is one of the few books which offers a true look into the life of a real cowboy and that too written by someone who had actually lived the life.Excerpt:"While ranching on the Indian Territory line, close to Caldwell, Kansas, in the winter of '82 and '83, we boys—there being nine of us—made an iron-clad rule that whoever was heard swearing or caught picking grey backs off and throwing them on the floor without first killing them, should pay a fine of ten cents for each and every offense. The proceeds to be used for buying choice literature—something that would have a tendency to raise us above the average cow-puncher..."Charlie Siringo was an American lawman, detective and agent for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.