Wednesday, April 19, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Private
Tarbox
Here on the Figure 8, our
humble rancho in the pon-
derosas, we have inadver-
tently created an interpretive
center. That it also happens
to be housed in the entryway
“half-bath” is merely a side-
note. It is, in my humblest
estimation, everything that
a museum hosted in a water
closet should be.
In the “Custer Bathroom,”
as it has come to be appreci-
ated, are framed collections
of bird points and arrow-
heads — some fabricated
from trade steel — collected
by my grandfather when he
was a boy in the early days
of the last century. There is
a cavalry bugle stationed
above the toilet paper, a
print reproduction of Edgar
Paxson’s “Custer ’s Last
Stand” on the wall, and his-
torical books — “The Custer
Reader” and “Walter Camp’s
Notes on the Custer Fight,”
among others — for those
inclined toward a longer,
more leisurely residence.
There are also postcard
curios of natives involved
in the fight, including
Low Dog, Curley, Hairy
Moccasins, and other Crow
scouts photographed on their
return to the battlefield.
Naturally, there is a
framed portrait of Custer
himself, ensconced above
the towel rack, from which
he stares at himself in the
mirror above the sink, look-
ing velvety and absorbed
while striking a pose that is
certainly self-conscious, and
regrettably smug.
In the grand scheme, I
prefer to think of Custer, the
man, as a lesson rather than
a gallant.
But most importantly,
for my purposes here, there
is a framed reproduction of
the Bismarck Tribune, dated
July 6, 1876. The Tribune, a
territorial newspaper whose
embedded reporter — Mark
Kellogg — also died there,
is broadly credited with
announcing to the world the
fact of Custer’s death and
defeat in battle. In point of
fact, however, the Tribune
did not actually have the
scoop — both the Bozeman
Times and the Helena Daily
Herald beat them to the
punch by several days — but
their coverage, for whatever
reason, is largely spiked
from history.
Call it gravity, or per-
haps just a natural line of
sight, but for whatever rea-
son my gaze, while utilizing
the Custer Bathroom for its
erstwhile purpose, seems to
fall to that point on the front
page of the Tribune — which
contains a lengthy casualty
roll — where Private Tarbox
is listed as killed in action.
The call of nature — and
dozens of readings of the
Tribune front page — have
encouraged me to think
about Private Tarbox more
than, perhaps, I normally
would.
Private Byron Tarbox was
born in 1852, at Brooksville,
in Hancock County, Maine.
He enlisted on September 22,
1875, and told recruiters that
he was previously employed
as a shoemaker. He was 5
feet 6 inches tall. We know
that his father was a man
named Valentine Tarbox, and
that his parents divorced. His
mother was Lavinia Bolton
Tibbets Tarbox Morris, who
seems to have been — with-
out condemning her circum-
stances — a serial bride, and
who passed from this earth
in 1918.
But we learn something
else about Private Tarbox,
who served in Company L of
the 7th Cavalry, which was
under Custer’s direct com-
mand. Tarbox, who would
have trotted out with the Son
of the Morning Star along
the ridge above the Little
Bighorn and then down
Medicine Tail Coulee where
he and his comrades would
have encountered the most
unwelcome surprise of their
lifetimes, also had a brother
at the fight.
In the coulee, Tarbox
would have likely turned his
horse and scrambled back
up the to the ridge, prob-
ably disorganized but not yet
panicking, where he would
have been ordered into a dis-
mounted, rearguard action.
It was here, on Calhoun
Hill, while Custer rode north
with the remainders to die in
infamy, that Byron Tarbox
would perish along with his
comrades.
One wonders if he
thought of his younger
brother, fighting somewhere
off to his left, in the few min-
utes he had left to live in the
summer dust and heat.
William Ephraim Morris,
Tarbox’s half brother, who
lied about his age to enlist,
was actually 14 years old at
the time of the fight, assigned
to Company M, under Major
Marcus Reno. There is a
description, perhaps apoc-
ryphal, of a final discussion
between the brothers, as the
commands were split at Reno
Creek. Byron, 24 years old,
is alleged to have warned his
youthful brother in passing,
“Look out for your scalp,
Bill, the Indians don’t like
red-headed fellows.”
Young Morris survived,
though he was wounded in
the chest after Reno’s disas-
trous attack on the south end
of the enormous native vil-
lage — perhaps the largest
gathering of Plains Indians
s
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ever — while scrambling in
retreat, back up the bluffs
on the east side of the river.
He survived the continuous
fighting that followed, and
must have surmised at some
point that his older brother,
somewhere off to the north,
was dead.
Ultimately, Morris was
discharged from the Army,
but not before participating
in the Nez Perce campaign,
and only after a drunken
brawl in which he suffered
a broken arm. His dis-
charge papers describe him
as a private of “worthless
character.”
But Bill Morris was big-
ger than the Army’s opin-
ion of him. He went on to
become a lawyer, a judge
in New York City, and a
Captain in a National Guard
infantry regiment. He died in
1933.
I don’t know how Private
Tarbox and Judge Morris
would greet the news that
here, in 2017, their stories
were related in a column
inspired by bathroom decor.
But something tells me they
might find their way to the
irony in it, and I’m deeply
hopeful they would offer
at least a smile at the con-
solation, inasmuch as they
were at least remembered,
however briefly, 141 years
later.“Look out for your
scalp, Bill. The Indians don’t
like red-headed fellows.”
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