He served in the North Carolina House of Commons and State Senate prior to the U.S. Civil War.

Avery was brought to trial for murder but was acquitted on the grounds of extreme provocation leading to temporary insanity.

Due to this, there was a later convention held in Baltimore which did not include delegates from several slave states and divided the Democratic party into Northern and Southern factions leading up to the election of 1860.

After North Carolina seceded from the union in 1861, Avery was chosen to represent the state in the Provisional Confederate Congress.

He died in Morganton from wounds received in a skirmish with a party of Tennessee Unionists in 1864 after a raid on Camp Vance by the Union's 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry, one year to the day after the death of his brother Isaac.