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 Charles
Angelo Siringo was born in Texas and worked as a cowhand from the time he
was thirteen. At twenty-two he went out to join the search for 17-year-old
killer Billy the Kid but was forced to give up after he lost all his money
gambling. Siringo later worked as a grocer in Kansas for two years.
It was the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, in May of 1886,
which prompted Charlie to try detective work. Anarchists who opposed both
labor unions and private ownership of property were trying to overthrow
the local government.
One plan, of the anarchists, was to blow up the Chicago
police stations, cut telegraph wires so that no messages could get out,
burn buildings, and let all the prisoners out of jail. To attempt to start
a bloody revolution, one of the anarchists threw a bomb into a crowded
street. Several persons were killed, and sixty-eight policemen were
wounded.
Charles A. Siringo wanted to take personal action against
such outrages, so he applied for a job with the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency and was assigned to work on the anarchist case with other
detectives. The result of their work was that four anarchists were
executed and three went to prison for long terms.
In his twenty-two years with Pinkerton, Charlie worked on
hundreds of cases, large and small. One of his early investigations was
very interesting. He was sent to southwestern Colorado, where the
government of an entire county had been in political disagreements.
Officials of the County Commissioners Office hired the Pinkerton Agency to
straighten things out.
When Siringo rode into Pagosa Springs, Colorado, early in
1887, he called himself Charles Anderson. He fabricated his background
story saying that he was wanted in Texas for killing three men. He knew
the word would spread rapidly through the community, and he believed that
only an outlaw would be welcome among the people he was going to
investigate.
The leader of the insurgents was E. M. Taylor. Siringo
persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Taylor to let him stay at their home. Then he met
secretly with the county commissioners, who were all living temporarily in
one house where they could defend themselves. Charlie told them he would
not dare to meet with them again, but if he had an important news for
them, he somehow get word back to them.
"Charles Anderson" soon learned of a plot to
kill all three of the commissioners by burning down their house. He
sneaked away from the Taylor's' home and warned the Commissioners, but
this ended up exposing his true motives. Taylor ordered his men to find
and hang this "Charlie Anderson".
When the local Sheriff cornered him, Siringo talked him
out of it. He even even persuaded the sheriff, who was one of the
insurgents, to appoint him a special deputy. In this position, he could
collect information that he needed for evidence. For the next two months
Siringo gathered information and kept a report on all the local
happenings. He couldn't mail reports to the Denver office of the Pinkerton
Agency or even write letters to his wife. The insurgents had the town so
well under control that they read any mail that went through the Pagosa
Springs post office.
After Charlie had plenty of information, he left the town
and made his report. As a result of his work, a grand jury indicted
sixteen of the leaders in the uprising.
One of his most dangerous cases involved Ernest Bush, a
vicious youth only nineteen years old, whose ambition was to join an
outlaw gang headed by the notorious Black Jack Ketchum.
Ernest Bush had worked on a farm near Benkelman, Nebraska,
with an old Civil War veteran named Baily, who was kind to him. Baily
disappeared. When his body was found, there was evidence that death had
not been accidental. Ernest Bush was suspected of having killed him. Bush
was arrested, but he looked so innocent and lied so successfully that he
was released after a preliminary hearing in court.
L. Morse, who owned the farm, employed the Pinkerton
Agency to find the old man's murderer. Siringo arrived at the farm and
made friends with Ernest Bush. Siringo told the youth that he had been an
outlaw in the past, but said he had reformed and was now a rancher. He
also told Bush that he still had friends among outlaws and was a great
friend of Black Jack Ketchum.
Siringo talked Bush into going with him to his ranch in
New Mexico. At least twice on the way, Siringo argued with Bush about
killing some Mexicans for whatever money they might have. Ernest Bush was
a dangerous fellow to have around, but only by getting well acquainted
with him could Charlie Siringo hope to find out whether he had killed old
Mr. Baily.
At the ranch, Bush boastfully confessed that he had
killed Baily. He even re-enacted the killing, with Siringo playing the
role of the victim. Bush boasted about several other crimes, too. Baily
had not been his first murder victim.
Siringo had an old friend named Cunny visit him at the
ranch. Cunny knew what was going on and boasted about being an outlaw in
the Black Jack Ketchum gang. He told Ernest Bush that he was too young and
that he really wasn't bad enough to join the outlaw gang. Bush, to prove
he was eligible, proudly confessed his crimes to Cunny.
So Siringo had his witness. But Bush was not under arrest.
Siringo persuaded the young killer to accompany him to Denver, with the
idea of meeting Black Jack Ketchum. In Denver, the young man was arrested
and transported to Nebraska. He was tried for the murder of
Baily and convicted.
Trailing fugitives through deserts and blizzards, Siringo
lived with moonshiners and disguised himself as a wanted criminal to
convince Efie Landusky, a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, to tell him
where infamous outlaw Harvey Logan hid out.
The detective later barely escaped being killed when he
infiltrated a union which was at the center of the Couer d'Alene labor
riots of the 1890s.
In 1907, twenty-two years as a Pinkerton detective,
Charlie Siringo resigned.
When Siringo left the Pinkerton organization, he thought
he was retiring and could settle down to running his ranch near Santa Fe,
New Mexico. But he still liked excitement, so for several years he did
detective work for a new employer, the William J. Burns Detective Agency
of Chicago.
After six years, he became bored with this and joined the
New Mexico Rangers. This work also left much to be desired and he retired
for good. He lived on his ranch and he enjoyed traveling and visiting old
friends. He died in Hollywood, California, on October 19, 1928.
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