Asa Brainerd Isham

Asa Brainerd Isham (12 July 1844 — 20 February 1912) was an American soldier and physician.

Isham was born on July 12, 1844, in Jackson, Ohio, to Chapman Isham and Mary Ann Faulkner. He received his preliminary education in the public schools of his native town and later graduated from Marietta (Ohio) Academy. 

After graduation, in 1860, Isham moved to Marquette, Michigan, where he worked for the Lake Superior Journal. In 1862, he moved to Detroit and began working as an editor of the Detroit Daily Tribune. This training in printing and editing was invaluable as a means of education and in fitting the future physician to spread before the public the results of his experience, both in his military career and in the field of his medical labors.

In November 1862, he enlisted as a private in the Seventh Michigan Cavalry and was assigned the duties of postmaster of the regiment, adjutant's clerk, and regimental marker. In January 1863, he became sergeant of Company I.

In April and May 1863, he participated in several skirmishes and on the fourteenth of the latter month was severely wounded in an engagement near Warrentown Junction in Virginia. He was wounded again at Yellow Tavern, Virginia on May 11, 1864, and captured by the Confederate Army. He was held in several officers' prisons including Charleston, South Carolina. He was finally paroled in an exchange on December 11, 1864.

He was then assigned to the IV Corps and served in Texas. He was discharged on account of wounds on April 14, 1865, and returned to Ohio and became a general partner at a general store in Salina. 

In 1866, Isham attended the Medical College of Ohio and graduated in 1869. He began to practice in Walnut Hills near Cincinnati, Ohio, and eventually became president of the Walnut Hills Medical Society. He was also a pension examiner during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison. 

In 1886, he became a member of the medical board of police examiners. He contributed to medical journals and articles including co-authoring "Prisoner of War and Military Prisons." He later became a professor of physiology in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery from 1877 to 1881.

Isham was married to his wife Mary Hamlin Keyt. They had 7 children.

Isham died on February 20, 1912, in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the age of 67.