A WARRIOR WHO FOUGHT CUSTER Interpreted fcy THOMAS B. MARQUIS
Illustrated MINNEAPOLIS THE MIDWEST COMPANY MCMXXXI WOODEN LEG, A
WARRIOR WHO FOUGHT CUSTER, HOLDING A RIFLE CAPTURED BY A CHEYENNE
COMPANION WARRIOR AT I OFTEN THINK THAT IF I WERE AN INDIAN I WOULD
GREATLY PREFER TO CAST MY LOT AMONG THOSE OF MY PEOPLE WHO ADHERED
TO THE FREE OPEN PLAINS RATHER THAN SUBMIT TO THE CONFINED LIMITS
OF A RESERVATION, THERE TO BE THE RECIPIENT OF THE BLESSED BENEFITS
OF CIVILIZATION, WITH ITS VICES THROWN IN WITHOUT STINT OR MEASURE.
from paffe IB of General Oiutor 9 book, MY Lm ON TOT PLAINS.
published 1876. a few montht before hif death. THE AUTHORS
STATEMENT had found out that this ingratiating white man was not
scheming to entrap them into fatal admissions, they told the whole
story. Not only did they answer all questions, but they added
spontaneous informa tion concerning every detail of the battle and
of the entire hostile Indian movements during that event ful summer
of 1876. Sixteen hundred of these Montana Cheyennes were with the
Sioux horde in the battle camps be side the Little Bighorn river.
All of the Sioux were settled soon afterward in the Dakotas, and
they stayed there. The Cheyennes were located on a res ervation in
the heart of the region where had been the conflicts. During the
subsequent more than fifty years they have viewed over and over the
central historic spots. Thus they have kept their memories fresh or
have kept each other prompted into true recollections. This
advantageous condition has ren dered them the best of first-hand
authorities. Up to late 1930, seventeen Cheyennes who were adult
warriors at Custer battle were yet alive. Wooden Leg became the
authors favoritenarra tor. It seemed that his lifetime biography
should surround his special battle story, so that readers might
learn what kind of people were the hostile In dians of that day.
Hour after hour, on scores of different occasions in recent years,
the elderly white vi The Authors Statement. The Indian story of
Ousters last battle has never been told, except in a few
fragmentary interviews that have been distorted into extravagant
fiction. There were no white men survivors of that most thrilling
of American frontier tragedies, so the veteran hostile red warriors
have exclusive posses sion of the key to the mystery as to how it
happened. The present author, sixty-one years old and a res ident
of Montana throughout the past forty-one years, decided in 1922 to
apply himself at probing into this matter. He served a few months
as agency physician for the Northern Cheyennes, a tribe allied with
the Sioux in the annihilation of Custer. Since then, the
investigator has been in close association with these Indians. He
has learned the old-time plains Indian sign-talk to a degree en
abling him to dispense with interpreters, except in rare instances.
He has held out continual invita tion for Ouster-battle veteran
warriors to visit his home, partake of his food and smoke his
tobacco. After a long siege, they began to come. Later, they began
to talk, but only a little. Still later, after they THE AUTHORS
STATEMENT man doctor has sat enthralled by the well-connected and
vivid sign-talk recountings of this companion so congenial. Wooden
Legs gestures often were sup plemented by his dainty pencil
drawings and by his sketched maps papers now treasured as precious
documents. A few stray English words from hisex tremely scant
vocabulary of them were besprinkled through the efforts at full
expression. The principal story-tellers statements of essential
facts have been amalgamated with those of his fellow tribesmen who
fought as companions with him. Groups of them, with him as the
leader, took the author many times into assemblage. Thus all points
of importance have been checked and corroborated or corrected...
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