Turkey Legs, a minor Northern Cheyenne Chief in 1876, led his warriors at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He was famous among his people for his later exploit known to whites as the Plum Creek incident, in which Turkey Legs and his young band derailed a Union Pacific train and killed several crew members. One white railroader escaped after the Cheyennes scalped him and became one of the few cases on record of a person surviving without his scalp.
“All tribes (of the plains) needed buffalo for livelihoods, so we tried to stop vehos from bringing in their iron horses and splitting and destroying the buffalo herds. I set out to lead a raid to ‘kill’ an iron horse.” – Crow Agency, MT 1938
