James Shaw Kennedy

At the great assault of 19 January, Shaw carried his general, mortally wounded, from the crest of the glacis and later conveyed Wellington's summons to surrender to the French governor.

At Badajoz, now once more with the 43rd, he displayed, at the lesser breach, a gallantry which furnished his brother officer William Napier with the theme of one of his most glorious descriptive passages.

During the late afternoon of 18 June that Division had to defend its position against repeated French cavalry charges and Shaw was struck in the side, putting him out of action for a period.

[1] Shaw's reconnoitring skill and tactical judgment was of the greatest assistance to Alten and to Wellington, who promoted him brevet major in July the same year.

His famous Notes on Waterloo (with an appendix giving a Plan for the defence of Canada) would be published fifty years after the battle, though he wrote it in 1863.

[citation needed] During the Allied army's occupation of France Shaw was commandant of Calais from 1815 to 1818, receiving the new Waterloo Medal in 1816 and going on half-pay on 25 March 1817.

[2] In 1820 he married Mary Primrose Kennedy of Kirkmichael at Ayr, with whom he later had one son and two daughters:[4] He remained off active service until 1826 when he was appointed assistant adjutant-general in Belfast under the viceregality of Richard Wellesley (Wellington's elder brother).

After Ireland Shaw Kennedy[a] led a retired country life for ten years,[1] before being called upon to command an army force at Liverpool to face the Chartist movement.