Told with vigor and insight, this is the memorable story of Wooden Leg (1858–1940), one of sixteen hundred warriors of the Northern Cheyennes who fought with the Lakotas against Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Wooden Leg remembers the world of the Cheyennes before they were forced onto reservations. He tells of growing up on the Great Plains and learning how to be a Cheyenne man. We hear from him about Cheyenne courtship, camp life, spirituality, and hunting; of skirmishes with Crows, Pawnees, and Shoshones; and of the Cheyennes’ valiant but doomed resistance against the army of the United States. In particular, Wooden Leg recalls the fight against Custer at the Little Bighorn, a controversial and arresting recollection that stands as the first published Native account of that battle. As an old man in his seventies, Wooden Leg related the story of his life and the Little Bighorn battle in interviews with Thomas B. Marquis (1869–1935), formerly an agency physician for the Northern Cheyennes. Marquis checked and corroborated or corrected all points of importance with other Cheyennes. This edition features a new introduction by Richard Littlebear, president of Chief Dull Knife College and an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation of Montana.

Told with vigor and insight, this is the memorable story of Wooden Leg (1858-1940), one of sixteen hundred warriors of the Northern Cheyennes who fought with the Lakotas against Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Wooden Leg remembers the world of the Cheyennes before they were forced onto reservations. He tells of growing up on the Great Plains and learning how to be a Cheyenne man. We hear from him about Cheyenne courtship, camp life, spirituality, and hunting; of skirmishes with Crows, Pawnees, and Shoshones; and of the Cheyennes' valiant but doomed resistance against the army of the United States. In particular, Wooden Leg recalls the fight against Custer at the Little Bighorn, a controversial and arresting recollection that stands as the first published Native account of that battle. As an old man in his seventies, Wooden Leg related the story of his life and the Little Bighorn battle in interviews with Thomas B. Marquis (1869-1935), formerly an agency physician for the Northern Cheyennes. Marquis checked and corroborated or corrected all points of importance with other Cheyennes. This edition features a new introduction by Richard Littlebear, president of Chief Dull Knife College and an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation of Montana.

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...

Thomas H. Leforge was "born an Ohio American" and chose to "die a Crow Indian American." His association with his adopted tribe spanned some of the most eventful years of its history--from the Indian Wars to the reservation period--and as interpreter, agency employee, chief of Crow scouts for the 1876 campaign (he was with Terry at the Little Big Horn), bona fide Crow "wolf," and husband of a Crow woman, he was usually in the midst of the action. His story, first published in 1928, remains a remarkably accurate source of historical and ethnological information on this relatively little known tribe.