Thank you George for this information,
Not finding him in the Union rolls is a good indication he did not desert and change sides. Not finding him in any other rolls would lend me to believe that he was in fact killed at Prairie Grove.

One of the accounts of Prairie Grove I read was that Adams Regmt. was held in reserve at the church until late in the day and was called into action at around 3 in the afternoon, fighting ending after 5. given that it was winter and the days are very short my guess it was getting dark. The account also stated that being short of supplies and ammunition the Confederate forces made a tactical withdrawal from the field during the night. My guess is that the dead were left behind and the Union did what they could with them not knowing who they were many were marked "unknown".

I will start hunting for Roll call information following the battle. Surely they had to do some post battle assessment of both survivors and non-survivors.

I thank you both George and Danny for all your help. If you should learn anything else I would be most happy to hear it.