Books with author Chas. A. 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.

HISTORY OF “BILLY THE KID” The true life of the most daring young outlaw of the age. He was the leading spirit in the bloody Lincoln County, New Mexico, war. When a bullet from Sheriff Pat Garett’s pistol pierced his breast he was only twenty-one years of age, and had killed twenty-one men, not counting Indians. His six years of daring outlawry has never been equalled in the annals of criminal history.

There is no better exploration of Texas cowboy life than Charles Siringo’s. What sets his memoir apart is his candid account of the personality, habits, and values that brought him to the range. His difficult, dirt-poor childhood, his free-spending ways, his driving wanderlust, his love of whiskey, guns, horses, and star-topped boots, his distinctly situational ethics, his aversion to manual labor—and equal aversion to education—compose a package that belongs on the back of the horse. Siringo tells a great story, and he does it without any of the obvious embellishment that characterize the memoirs of some of his contemporaries. He is too open about his own flaws and failings for the words to be anything other than the truth. And his candor is perfectly complemented by a wry wit that spices his stories perfectly. Tales of the Chisholm Trail and of Billy the Kid are highlights of the book, but it is Siringo’s earliest years—before he became a cowboy (or Cow-boy, as he originally put it) that may be the most compelling. In all, his story is so full of excitement that something as remarkable as the Indianola Hurricane of 1875 receives little attention—even though Siringo spent the night in water up to his neck. It’s a Texas must-read.

My excuse for writing this book is money—and lots of it. 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. Just twenty-four hours after making this rule we had three dollars in the pot—or at least in my pocket, I having been appointed treasurer. As I was going to town that night to see my Sunday girl, I proposed to the boys that, while up there, I send the money off for a years subscription to some good newspaper. The question then came up, what paper shall it be? We finally agreed to leave it to a vote—each man to write the one of his choice on a slip of paper and drop it in a hat. There being two young Texans present who could neither read nor write, we let them speak their choice after the rest of us got our votes deposited. At the word given them to cut loose they both yelled "Police Gazette", and on asking why they voted for that wicked Sheet, they both replied as though with one voice: "Cause we can read the pictures." We found, on counting the votes that the Police Gazette had won, so it was subscribed for. With the first copy that arrived was the beginning of a continued story, entitled "Potts turning Paris inside out." Mr. Potts, the hero, was an old stove-up New York preacher, who had made a raise of several hundred thousand dollars and was over in Paris blowing it in. I became interested in the story, and envied Mr. Potts very much. I wished for a few hundred thousand so I could do likewise; I lay awake one whole night trying to study up a plan by which I could make the desired amount. In trying to solve the question my mind darted back a few years, when, if I had taken time by the forelock, I might have now been wallowing in wealth with the rest of the big cattle kings—or to use a more appropriate name, cattle thieves. But alas! thought I, the days of honorable cattle stealing is past, and I must turn my mind into a healthier channel. CONTENTS: I. My Boyhood Days II. My Introduction to the late war III. My First Lesson in Cow Punching IV. My second experience in St. Louis V. A New experience VI. Adopted and sent to school VII. Back at last to the Lone Star State VIII. Learning to rope wild steers IX. Owning my first cattle X. A start up the Chisholm trail XI. Buys a boat and becomes a sailor XII. Back to my favorite occupation, that of a wild and woolly Cow Boy XIII. Mother and I meet at last XIV. On a tare in Wichita, Kansas XV. A lonely trip down the Cimeron XVI. My first experience roping a Buffalo XVII. An exciting trip after thieves XVIII. Seven weeks among Indians XIX. A lonely ride of eleven hundred miles XX. Another start up the Chisholm trail XXI. A trip which terminated in the capture of "Billy the Kid" XXII. Billy the Kid's capture XXIII. A trip to the Rio Grande on a mule XXIV. Waylaid by unknown parties XXV. Lost on the Staked Plains XXVI. A trip down the Reo Pecos XXVII. A true sketch of "Billy the Kid's" life XXVIII. Wrestling with a dose of Small Pox on the Llano Esticado XXIX. In love with a Mexican girl XXX. A sudden leap from Cow Boy to Merchant

Charles A. Siringo was truly a Texas original not only in that his life was singular in its variety—youthful survivor, working cowboy, Pinkerton detective, early movie extra. He also was an original among Texas cowboys in providing a personal narrative of the actual experience of the uniquely American hero, the cowboy. A TEXAS COWBOY, OR, FIFTEEN YEARS ON THE HURRICANE DECK OF A SPANISH PONY, takes us through his journey as a fatherless child, the primary provider for his mother and older sister. Beginning on the Texas coast, detouring through Mississippi river towns and back to Texas, he eventually settles into the life of the working cowboy. An encounter with the famous outlaw Billy the Kid and his pursuer Pat Garrett is only one of the colorful experiences that shapes his life and makes his narrative so impelling.