You are referring to Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Franklin Gordon, who in May or June 1863 was the executive officer of Colonel Jo O. Shelby's famed 5th Missouri Cavalry (CSA). Gordon became the colonel or regimental commander of the 5th Missouri Cavalry in December 1863.

You may refer to some written about him in James McGhee's 2008 "Guide to Missouri Confederate Units, 1861-1865," pub. by Univ. of Arkansas Press, on pages 72-77, which mentions little about the timeframe of late May early June 1863. This unit had been part of General Marmaduke's April 1863 raid on southeast Missouri, and this source next mentions their involvement 4 July 1863 in the Battle of Helena, Arkansas. Where LTC Gordon was between those two events I cannot say, except I would suppose he was in Arkansas.

A good biography of Gordon is in Bruce S. Allardice's 2008 "Confederate Colonels: A Biographical Register," pub. by Univ. of Missouri Press on page 169, although it does not address where Gordon was located in the time frame you mentioned. Tennessee-born Gordon's home was in Waverly, northeast Lafayette County near the Missouri River, where he operated a drug store before the war. You could use Interlibrary Loan at a library close to you to view these books or even ask Interlibrary loan to mail to you photocopies of the pages I mentioned.

Regarding Glaze, Missouri, I wonder if that refers to Grand Glaze in Camden County, MO about where Lake of the Ozarks is today. That is the only Civil War period town name like that I know in Missouri. Are you sure this took place in Glaze, Missouri, and not in some other state such as Arkansas or Kansas?

If the letters you have place LTC Gordon at Grand Glaze, it would appear that he may have been on his way home to visit in Waverly or on his way back to the regiment passing through that area in order to cross the wide Osage River in Camden County, but, of course, this is conjecture. He would not be in uniform for such a trip, since Missouri was totally under Union occupation from February 1862 through the rest of the war.

I do have a couple of skirmishes Union militia had with Rebels in that area in the timeframe you indicated. On May 31 1863 or just before 150 mounted Union militia in or near St. Clair or Cedar County surprised a group of 15 southerners, possibly guerrillas, in camp and killed one of them who remained to fight perhaps to give the others a chance to escape. The dead southerer was identified as Pat or Patterson Crockett, but I was not able to identify this man. Records of the 5th Missouri Cavalry show a Private Crockett, but he was accounted for at this time. My source for this skirmish was a letter printed in "Western Campaigner" vol. 5, no. 7 in September 1983 in an article by Rick Reed. The June 7, 1863 letter was written by a Nancy J. Wilingham and addressed to Susan and Jane Crockett, her sisters, in St. Clair County, MO. Although Rick Reed was able to transcribe the letter, it is very confusing since it does not explain things mentioned and Nancy's spelling is hard to understand.

The second skirmish took place near "Camp Cole" or Cole Camp, north Benton County on 8 June 1863 and involved a patrol of parts of the 6th Cavalry Missouri State Militia evidently stationed at Warsaw, Benton County. The short record gave no other details. Since the 6th Cavalry MSM was active in this region, it was probably also part of their regiment involved in the skirmish a few days before mentioned above, but this is my conjecture. My source for this skirmish is Frederick Dyer's landmark "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," in his outline of various actions that took place in Missouri in vol. 2 of 3, on page 807. I should mention that Dyer is in the reference section of most libraries, and later editions combine all three volumes in one volume.

Does this help your quest at all?

Bruce Nichols