Oral history and research did the trick.
The date of death came actually from information from the National Archives. It was researched by a lady and then made into a book called Rebel's Hell which dicussed the prison in Little Rock. It discussed the terrible conditions of the place plus listed all the names and who was taken and what happened to them, etc. By reading I found the exact date of death.
Also, by reading and knowing when the last child was born, I knew how far along his widow was with the last baby. The last baby-Pleas Price who was born in March of 1865 was named for the son-in-law, Sgt. Pleas H. Loyd, 36th Arkansas CSA- that all believed dead. Then Pleas Loyd walked home from Texas only to died soon afterward. That left my great grandmother as a little motherless orphan depending on her widowed grandmother.
I actually grew up knowing that Granddaddy Price had died in the Yankee Prison. I also found out by researching that while we did not know he was in the military, he actually was a Lt. with the 1st Arkansas Cav.
The records on the 1st Arkansas are rather skimpy unless you happen to find someone such as Fielding Price who was captured and died.
He served under Dobbins who left and went to South America.
By further research, I found out in recent time that Dobbins was still alive even after his family had declared him dead.
The one thing I could not find was what happened to Lt. Fielding Price's body. It is believed that he was first buried in a local cemetery within Little Rock named Mt. Holly and later reburied as an unknown CSA next to the National Cemetery. We always were told that the Price family was not allowed to have his body because he had died of smallpox.
It took me years to get that story together, so that is why I always tell people to never quit searching. That is also why I always say you need to consider how it really was. I feel that in this day and time, many of us now look back on the Civil War with what I call rose colored glasses.
Truth is truth and we need to realize what we find is not always pretty.
Good luck with your search-
Linda