Weir Point

Late on June 25, Company D under Captain Thomas Weir advanced without orders to this hilltop position in an attempt to locate Custer. Weir may have witnessed the conclusion of the battle three miles ahead, and he was later joined by Captain Benteen and others. After the Lakota and Cheyenne returned from destroying all of Custer’s immediate command, they forced these troops to abandon this position and fall back to their hilltop defense one mile south. Pvt. William Morris of Company M, 7th Cavalry, recalled that Weir at first believed distant horsemen with guidons were Custer, but after Sergeant Flanagan urged him to look through field glasses and Weir decided they were Indians, the men dismounted and led the horses behind the hill. Standing Bear, a Minneconjou Lakota, remembered seeing soldiers come onto a hill to the south and east, hearing people shout for haste, and watching the soldiers run back the way they had come as one was killed and then couped.

Montana · United States