author
Wooden Leg
1858–1940
A Northern Cheyenne warrior and storyteller, he is remembered for sharing a firsthand Indigenous account of life on the Plains and the battles of 1876. His recollections, recorded late in life, helped preserve Cheyenne history in his own voice.
1 Audiobook
A warrior who fought Custer
by Wooden Leg
About the author
Born around 1858, Wooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne man who grew up in the traditional life of the Plains. As a teenager he took part in the Battle of the Rosebud and the Battle of the Little Bighorn during the Great Sioux War of 1876, experiences that later made him an important eyewitness to a defining moment in American history.
He is best known as the voice behind Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer, a book based on interviews with physician and writer Thomas B. Marquis and published in 1931. The book is valued not just for its account of battle, but for its vivid memories of Cheyenne family life, customs, travel, hunting, and community before reservation life changed everything.
Wooden Leg died in 1940. Today he is remembered not only as a warrior, but as a keeper of memory whose life story offers readers a rare and deeply personal Cheyenne perspective on the 19th-century Plains.