Eamonn O’Keeffe

The military memoirs of Shadrack Byfield, an English weaver and war amputee, have long enjoyed a prominent place in the story of the War of 1812. As one of the few eyewitness accounts of the conflict from a rank-and-file British soldier, his autobiography has been widely quoted in books, documentaries, and museum displays on both sides of the US-Canadian border. Yet very little is known about the man behind the memoir.

Drawing on original research, including a newly discovered second autobiography, this talk investigates Byfield’s efforts to navigate civilian life, secure veterans’ benefits, and publish accounts of his experiences. It chronicles the ex-soldier’s invention of a prosthesis to enable a return to work and analyzes his shifting self-presentation in print. O’Keeffe uses Byfield’s lively and often moving story as a case study through which to explore the broader experiences of British veterans returning home after the Napoleonic Wars.

Dr Eamonn O’Keeffe is a National Army Museum Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. From autumn 2025 he will be working at Memorial University, Newfoundland as the Pratt Fellow in History.

Eamonn’s interests include military music and duelling among army officers in the Napoleonic era. His work has won the André Corvisier Prize, awarded by the International Commission for Military History for the best PhD thesis in the field, and the Pollard Prize, awarded by the Institute for Historical Research. Eamonn’s book on British military music is under contract with McGill-Queens’ University Press.