Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer - Research

Research

Marquis wrote the book in 1930 at the age of 61, but had begun researching it in 1922. In this year Marquis, a doctor, came into contact with the Northern Cheyenne when appointed agency physician on their reservation in Montana. His initial aim was to collect first-hand accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Since there had been no white survivors, obtaining the Indian accounts was all the more important for obtaining a complete historical record. However, it took him many years to fully gain the trust of the Indians and he did not complete the task until 1930. In the meantime the project grew as Marquis added details of Wooden Leg's life before and after the events at the Little Bighorn. It eventually metamorphosed from a historical account of the battle into a biography of Wooden Leg, Marquis' principal informant.

The issue of trust was difficult to overcome. Wooden Leg himself relates the attitudes of the Cheyenne at a peace feast organised to commemorate the 30th anniversary (1906) of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In the presence of many United States soldiers, the Cheyenne were questioned about the battle. They answered with extreme caution; many facts, particularly regarding the deaths of US soldiers, were avoided. Despite the long passage of time since the battle, they feared that they were being trapped into incriminating admissions. They also chose not to reveal that they believed that many soldiers had died through suicide or at the hands of their comrades, as they knew this issue had made soldiers angry in the past. They left most of the talking to one boastful Indian, Two Moons, who gave a colourful—but entirely inaccurate—account. The others elected not to contradict him since this allowed them to remain silent. Marquis slowly broke down the barriers and eventually persuaded all the Cheyenne survivors he was in contact with, not just Wooden Leg, to open up to him.

Some sixteen hundred Northern Cheyenne were at the battle of the Little Big Horn. For all of the intervening period of more than fifty years between the battle and Marquis' interviews, the Cheyenne had lived in Montana at sites overlooking the battlegrounds. In Marquis' view, this made them the most reliable of witnesses because their continual retelling of the stories was always anchored in the visible reality of the locations before them.

Wooden Leg spoke little English and Marquis spoke no Cheyenne. They communicated mainly through Plains Indian Sign Language and only occasionally used an interpreter. Wooden Leg provided maps and sketches as well as narrative. The book is an amalgam of material from Wooden Leg along with support and corroboration from many contributors, including most of the seventeen Northern Cheyenne participants of the Battle of the Little Big Horn still alive at the time of the interviews. From these, Marquis gives specific credits to 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, and the younger Little Wolf. The last is a different person from the more well known Chief Little Wolf who led the Northern Cheyenne Exodus from Oklahoma in 1877–79.