Col Isaac Wheeler Avery was born on May 2, 1837, in St. Augustine, Ma, a Confederate soldier, journalist, and politician. The son of Isaac Wheeler and Mary Moore (King) Avery. On his father’s side, he was descended from Gov. Winthrop of Massachusetts. He was educated at Oglethorpe University and studied for the bar. Enlisting in the 8th Georgia, he fought from the first battle of Bull Run nearly to the close of the war, and reached the rank of colonel and the command of a brigade.
For a short time, he was a prisoner, having been captured by Gen. Sheridan, and in 1864 while serving under ten. Johnston was severely wounded at the battle of New Hope Church. Of his conduct in this engagement, the commander-in-chief wrote: “In spite of being brutally wounded at the beginning, Col. Avery, supported in his saddle by a soldier, continued to command and maintained the contest until the arrival of forces capable of holding the ground” (J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 1874,).
The deep wounds actually injured his spine so that for years afterward he used crutches. After the war, Isaac Wheeler Avery practiced law and was active in the politics and journalism of the Reconstruction era in Georgia. He married Emma Bivings, on Jan 01, 1868.
For a number of years, Col Isaac Wheeler Avery was editor-in-chief of the Atlanta Constitution and for a short time owned the Atlanta Herald. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention of 1872 and held at one time a position in the United States Treasury Department.
Col Isaac Wheeler Avery was one of the leaders in the South in promoting direct trade between the United States and other countries, particularly with the lands to the South. His History of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881 is mainly political. As a writer, he was associated with the National Cyclopedia of American Biography. However, his death removed one of the old cavaliers of the old south.
Col Isaac Wheeler Avery was a type that is now growing so rare. His resemblance to this “type” is emphasized in his own dictated statement, he died on Sept. 8, 1897, at the age of 60, in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, United States.
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