author
Wooden Leg
1858–1940
Remembered as a Northern Cheyenne warrior and storyteller, he preserved a firsthand account of Plains life and the battles of 1876. His voice gives readers a rare chance to see the Battle of the Little Bighorn from the Cheyenne side.
1 Audiobook
A warrior who fought Custer
by Wooden Leg
About the author
Born around 1858, Wooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne man from the Black Hills and Cheyenne River region. As a teenager, he fought in the Battle of the Rosebud and the Battle of the Little Bighorn during the Great Sioux War of 1876, experiences that would later make his recollections especially valuable.
In later life, he shared his memories in many interviews with Thomas B. Marquis, a physician who had worked with the Northern Cheyenne. Those interviews became Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer in 1931, a book widely known for preserving a Cheyenne eyewitness account of life on the Plains, intertribal customs, and the fighting against U.S. forces.
What makes Wooden Leg important as an author is the perspective he offers: direct, personal, and rooted in Cheyenne experience. His story is not only about war, but also about growing up, family, daily life, and the changes forced on his people in the late nineteenth century.