Pearson was a successful businessman who established a popular health resort in Orange Springs near Ocala as well as a hotel, grist mill and a machine shop.

Pearson became mortally wounded while leading Company B of the Ninth Florida Infantry Regiment across a cornfield at the Battle of Globe Tavern.

He resigned his command as a result of his wounds and died in Augusta, Georgia while making his way home to Orange Springs, Florida.

[5] His grandfather William Pearson was in the American Revolutionary War under Captain Tench Francis of the Philadelphia Troops Militia.

Yulee may have considered establishing a railroad through Orange Springs but the coming of a civil war halted this idea causing him to sell out to Pearson.

Union forces were attempting to raise the ship but Pearson was ordered to go to Dunn's Creek to block the entrance to the St. Johns River.

After failing to prod the enemy into an engagement he vented his frustration by arresting whites and blacks and charged them as being Union sympathizers.

Pearson's men scouted the right side of the St. Johns River arresting both white and black troublemakers.

The Federal gunboat maneuvered broadside and began opening fire on Fort Brooke initiating the Battle of Tampa.

Pearson decided to order the Confederate flag hoisted above the fort causing the Federal ship to respond with gunfire.

[17] Captain Pearson devised a plan to disguise his men as blacks and paddle out to the Federal gunboat as fugitive slaves.

One week later on April 3, 1863, the Tahoma and Beauregard were sent to Tampa to bombard the town in response to the daring attack off Gadsden Point.

[19] Union General Truman Seymour had landed in nearby Jacksonville with intentions of moving inland to Tallahassee in hopes of cutting off Florida from the Confederacy.

General Alfred Colquitt and his Georgia Regulars arrived to repel the advancing Union Army at Ocean Pond initiating the Battle of Olustee.

Captain Pearson's Oklawaha Rangers, now part of the Sixth Florida Battalion, was on the extreme right flank causing severe damage to the United States Colored Troops.

[20] After the Confederate States of America victory at the Battle of Olustee Captain Pearson's company patrolled North Florida and settled in Orange Springs.

Breckenridge's line was eventually broken causing the Ninth Florida to fill in the breach and repel the Federal forces.

Captain Pearson accompanied his regiment, now part of General William Mahone's division, to the Weldon Railroad on August 21, 1864.

Captain Pearson became mortally wounded in the Battle for the Weldon Railroad west of Globe Tavern and was sent to the Brigade Hospital.

[27] Through his daughter, Eliza Pearson, he is the grandfather of Maxey Dell Moody who established the oldest family owned construction equipment distributor in the United States called M. D. Moody & Sons, Inc. in 1913 that gradually grew to become at one time the largest crane dealer in the Southeastern United States.