Katsu Kaishū, “the shogun’s last samurai” of Samurai Revolution, was a prolific writer. Recently I’ve been thinking about one of his books, Bōyūchō (“Notebook of Deceased Friends”), which he wrote in 1877 (at age fifty-seven), nine years after the Meiji Restoration, about ten important historical personages of that era. Following is an edited excerpt (without footnotes) from Samurai Revolution:

Though Katsu Kaishū had not mentioned Saigō Takamori’s death in his journal, shortly after Saigō died he produced a small book of late great men of the Meiji Restoration. It is clear that Saigō was foremost on his mind—but he could not explicitly dedicate the book to him. Bōyūchō (Notebook of Deceased Friends) is an annotated compilation of letters, poems, and paintings in the original calligraphic brushwork, which Kaishū personally had received from eight late friends “over my career of thirty years.” (The book actually covers ten men, but Kaishū possessed calligraphic works addressed to himself from only eight of them.) . . . . Included beside Saigō are (in order of appearance): Sakuma Shōzan, Yoshida Torajirō (Shōin), Shimazu Nariakira, Yamanouchi Yōdō . . ., Katsura Kogorō, Komatsu Tatéwaki, Yokoi Shōnan, Hirosawa Hyōsuké, and Hatta Tomonori. Yokoi and Saigō are allotted the most space, with three works included from each of them. But Saigō alone is alluded to (if only implicitly) in the Introduction and it was with Saigō’s poem, Zangiku(“Chrysanthemums of Early Winter”), that Kaishū concluded the book.

The other day I was interviewed by John Dolan, co-host of a very fine weekly podcast called “Radio War Nerd,” which covers a wide range of military topics. John had read my Shinsengumi and became interested in the “samurai revolution.” He mentioned that many men had been butchered with swords during those years, and asked why samurai did not also use guns against their enemies. In my reply, I failed to mention the incident at the Teradaya inn in the outskirts of Kyoto, in which Sakamoto Ryoma famously used a Smith and Wesson revolver to defend against an attack by a Bakufu police unit, as depicted in this print published in Chikami Kiyomi’s early biography (1914). In Samurai Revolution, I translated Ryoma’s own account of the incident, as reported in a letter to his family. Following is a brief excerpt:

Thinking that the enemy was going to attack from the [left] side, I shifted my position to face left. Then I cocked my pistol and I fired a shot at [the man] on the far right of the line of ten enemy spearmen. But he moved back, so I shot at another one, but he also moved back. Meanwhile, [others of] the enemy were throwing spears, and also hibachi [charcoal braziers], fighting in all sorts of ways. . . . Needless to say, the fighting inside the house made quite a racket. Now I shot at another man, but didn’t know if I hit him.

Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolver, same model carried by Sakamoto Ryoma