was a Japanese

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ...

of the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, who served the

Makino clan The are a ''daimyō'' branch of the ''samurai'' Minamoto clan in Edo period Japan.Alpert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 70./ref> In the Edo period, the Makino were identified as one of the '' fudai'' or insider ''daimyō'' clans which we ...

of Nagaoka. Kawai was a senior military commander of Nagaoka forces during the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

of 1868–1869. He escaped to nearby

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princi ...

after his domain's fall; however, he contracted gangrene from an untreated leg wound, and died in Aizu.

References

*Sasaki Suguru (2002). ''Boshin sensō: haisha no Meiji ishin.'' Tokyo: Chūōkōron-shinsha. 1827 births 1868 deaths People of the Boshin War Samurai Karō People from Nagaoka Domain Deaths from gangrene 19th-century Japanese philosophers {{samurai-stub