Captain Isidore Esslinger, 32nd Indiana
By Michael A. Peake

Isidore Esslinger served as an officer in the Swiss Army and studied law at Heidelberg and Tuebingen Universities before immigrating to the United States in 1857. He spent one year at Cincinnati, then relocated permanently to Evansville where he initially worked as a dry-goods clerk. Esslinger joined as 1st lieutenant of Company “K,” 32nd Indiana, receiving commission on September 19, 1861. He became captain of Company “E” on August 13, 1862, and in February 1863, received commendation for his “gallant conduct at Stones River through military knowledge and fine soldierly qualities.” Due to severe sunstroke Esslinger resigned his commission in October 1863. He went home to Evansville but in early1864, he returned to Germany to visit his mother, fell in love with Jeannette Guth of Switzerland and married June 24, 1864 in a union that produced four children. In Evansville, he became a printer and editor/proprietor of the daily German paper, Der Union, and served two terms as Indiana Seventh District Deputy Collector for the Internal Revenue. Esslinger died at age 75 years, 3 months and one day on April 12, 1908.

Portrait by T. M. Schleier’s Photograph Gallery, Corner Cherry & Union Streets, Nashville, Tennessee.

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Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-128692