A Warrior who Fought Custer by Wooden Leg

Printed in the United States

"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 page 18 of General Custer's book_, MY LIFE ON THE PLAINS, _published 1876, a few months before his death_.

_The Author's Statement._

The Indian story of Custer's 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 possession of the key to the mystery as to how it happened.

The present author, sixty-one years old and a resident 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 enabling him to dispense with interpreters, except in rare instances. He has held out continual invitation for Custer-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 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 information concerning every detail of the battle and of the entire hostile Indian movements during that eventful summer of 1876.

Sixteen hundred of these Montana Cheyennes were with the Sioux horde in the battle camps beside 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 reservation 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 rendered 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 author's favorite narrator. It seemed that his lifetime biography should surround his special battle story, so that readers might learn what kind of people were the hostile Indians of that day. Hour after hour, on scores of different occasions in recent years, the elderly white man doctor has sat enthralled by the well-connected and vivid sign-talk recountings of this companion so congenial. Wooden Leg's gestures often were supplemented by his dainty pencil drawings and by his sketched maps -- papers now treasured as precious documents. A few stray English words from his extremely scant vocabulary of them were besprinkled through the efforts at full expression.

The principal story-teller's 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. The helpers have been Limpy, Pine, Bobtail Horse, Sun Bear, Black Horse, Two Feathers, Wolf Chief, Little Sun, Blackbird, Big Beaver, White Moon, White Wolf, Big Crow, Medicine Bull, the younger Little Wolf and other old men, as well as some old women and a few Sioux, all of whom were with the hostile Indians when Custer came.

THOMAS B. MARQUIS, M. D.

_Contents._

I BOYHOOD WILD DAYS 1

II ROAMERS IN THE GAME LANDS 20

III CHEYENNE WAYS OF LIFE 56

IV WORSHIPING THE GREAT MEDICINE 123

V OFF THE RESERVATION 155

VI SWARMING OF ANGERED INDIANS 177

VII SOLDIERS FROM THE SOUTHWARD 193

VIII ON THE LITTLE BIGHORN 208

IX THE COMING OF CUSTER 217