Alice --

The possibility of this man being alive after being reported dead is next to zero.

You must understand that

1) company members who had known this man for some time witnessed his death.
2) out of respect and simple decency they must have buried him.

There porbably is not report of burial. However, friends and family members in his company would not have left him behind unburied.

If I understand you're suggesting that
1) the man killed was really someone else, or that
2) after being struck by lighting and buried by his comrades, this man somhow recovered and climbed out of the grave.

Isn't it more likely that someone else by the same name and about the same age lived in Arkansas in 1880?