Thank-you again for the detail.
It's not much of a stretch to convert "Martin Van Buren Scott" into "N.B. Scott." "M"s turn into "N"s frequently in old documents. Someone writing the names of the dying in a field notebook may have picked the B rather than the V. In tracking other people with "VanBuren" as a middle name, sometimes it is abbreviated with a V, sometimes a B.
The Scotts on the list you gave me didn't provide direct connections to known first cousins and uncles, but the line is very large and I don't have all of it on my computer. I don't coubt they were releated. The line descends from a Revolutionary War Thomas Scott and is documented in many DAR records. Martin and Jasper were from Bates county and some of their first cousins were long-time residents of Saline County.

Re the formation of 6th Mo Cav: In a citation elsewhere, the author stated many in the 6th MO Cav came directly from a specific MSM unit. Is that how they happened to be at one place to form the unit? Is this something you researched and would it be in your book? I think it's great that you have been able to discern which valley they were in when they organized. I'm looking forward to reading it!

--Jean