Isaac E. Avery

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Isaac Erwin Avery (December 20, 1828 – July 3, 1863) was a colonel in the Confederate States Army who perished at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. He is most remembered for a poignant blood-stained note that he wrote as he lay dying on the slopes of Cemetery Hill.

Isaac E. Avery, born at Swan Ponds in Burke County, North Carolina, was the fourth son of Isaac Thomas and Harriet Erwin Avery, who in total had 16 children. Three of the brothers would be killed during the Civil War and another crippled for life.

"Ike" was the grandson of Waightstill Avery (1741-1821), a fiery Revolutionary War hero who served as the first attorney general of North Carolina and who had once been challenged to a duel by Andrew Jackson. Isaac attended the University of North Carolina for one year in 1847, but left to manage a plantation for his father in Yancey County. He formed a partnership with Charles F. Fisher and Samuel McDowell Tate to act as contractors in the building of the Western North Carolina Railroad in the mid-1850s.

With his state's secession from the Union, Isaac returned to Burke County and, with his brother Alphonso, recruited Company E of the 6th North Carolina Regiment. As captain, Isaac commanded the company, which fought in the First Battle of Manassas and the Battle of Seven Pines. In the summer of 1862, he was promoted to colonel. He was wounded at Gaines' Mill and was out of action until the fall. Following the reorganization of the army after the Battle of Fredericksburg, the 6th North Carolina was placed under the command of veteran Brig. Gen. Robert F. Hoke.

With Hoke's wounding at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1862, Avery temporarily assumed command of the brigade in time for the Gettysburg Campaign. The 34-year-old Avery led his troops forward on Day 1 on a wide sweep north and east of the borough of Gettysburg. Union artillery fire from a knoll near Culp's Hill finally halted his advance. On July 2nd, Maj. Gen. Jubal Early ordered Avery and the brigade of Harry T. Hays to assault Cemetery Hill. Attacking in the early evening, Avery was struck in the neck by a musket ball and fell bleeding from his white horse. After the ill-fated charge, the partially paralyzed officer was discovered by several of his soldiers. His aide and former business partner, Maj. Samuel Tate of the 6th North Carolina, knelt by his side. Unable to speak from his mortal wound and with his right hand useless from the paralysis, Avery with his left hand scribbled a simple note for Tate: "Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy. I. E. Avery." He died the following day in a nearby field hospital. A servant, Elijah, carried Avery's body in a cart to Williamsport, Maryland, where it was initially buried.

Accolades were quick to come for the fallen Tar Heel colonel. The man who assumed the brigade command with Avery's demise, Col. Archibald C. Godwin, wrote in his official report, "Here I learned for the first time that our brigade commander (Col. Isaac E. Avery), had been mortally wounded. In his death the country lost one of her truest and bravest sons, and the army one of its most gallant and efficient officers."

General Early in his report wrote, "I had to regret the absence of the gallant Brigadier-General Hoke, who was severely wounded in the action of May 4, at Fredericksburg, and had not recovered, but his place was worthily filled by Colonel Avery, of the Sixth North Carolina Regiment, who fell, mortally wounded, while gallantly leading his brigade in the charge on Cemetery Hill, at Gettysburg, on the afternoon of July 2. In his death the Confederacy lost a good and brave soldier."

The Isaac E. Avery Chapter #282 of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, a fraternal organization, is named in memory of the colonel.

[edit] References

• Files of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
• Files of the Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, PA