Colonel Avery’s Lost Grave
Among those who faced death in the desperate charge on the Union right on East Cemetery Hill, July 2nd, Colonel I. E. Avery, of North Carolina, in command of Hoke’s brigade, bore a gallant part. At the head of the column he led his men up the slope of Cemetery Hill and, a conspicuous mark, fell mortally wounded.
Unable to speak, he drew a card from his pocket and wrote the following: “Tell father that I died with my face toward the enemy.” In the retreat from Gettysburg, his body was taken along to be delivered to his family, but when the army reached Williamsport the Potomac was too high to cross. There, in the cemetery overlooking the river, the remains were interred in an oak coffin under a pine tree. He was buried in his uniform by the men who saw him fall.
Thirty years after, Judge A. C. Avery, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, a resident of Morgantown, and Captain J. A. McPherson of Fayette, N. C., both veterans of the Confederacy, came to Williamsport with the object of locating Colonel Avery’s grave. Their search was fruitless.