This undated photo, from the family photo archive of the American Descendants of Katsu Kaishū, is posted on their Facebook page, which is “For all descendants, relatives, and friends of the 6 children of Clara Whitney and Umetaro Kaji.” Umetaro Kaji was Kaishū’s son. Clara Whitney was Umetaro’s American wife. If you look at the Descendants’ Facebook page (@WhitneyKajiDescendants), you will see a recent photo of the Descendants: at front center is my good friend Douglas Stiffler, Katsu Kaishū’s great-great-grandson.

[Backside of above photo]

 

See also my post on Tokugawa Yoshinobu’s family, photographed two decades after the fall of the Bakufu.

This photo of the Tokugawa family was taken in 1889, about twenty-one years after the fall of the Tokugawa Bakufu, at the home of Tokugawa Akitake (4^th from the left), the last daimyo of Mito. Akitake’s elder brother, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (at age 52), the last shogun, is on the far left. The photo, which includes Yoshinobu’s two sons, a daughter, his mother (a princess of the blood of the Arisugawa family) and other members of his extended family, is on display at the Kōdōkan in Mito. Seated next to Yoshinobu is Tokugawa Iesato, the 16^th head of the Tokugawa family who succeeded him after he stepped down as shōgun and family head. Around three years after this photo was taken, Katsu Kaishū, the last shogun’s “last samurai,” adopted a son of Yoshinobu, Kuwashi, as his heir.

Takasugi Shinsaku, the military leader of Choshu’s revolutionary forces in the war against the Bakufu in 1866, resented the coerced foreign trade treaties unilaterally concluded by the Bakufu in the summer of 1858. A favorite student of Yoshida Shoin, Takasugi had been a staunch advocate of “expel the barbarians” until he realized that it would be impossible to do so without first overthrowing the Bakufu, which he blamed for letting the foreigners in. The realization came during a trip to Shanghai in 1862, briefly recounted in my essay posted on this website and in more detail in Samurai Revolution.

Given Takasugi’s natural resentment of the foreign intruders, I was at once amused and moved by a comment from an old woman in his hometown of Hagi. It was during one of my trips to that historic city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in August of either 1986 or 1987 (I can’t remember which). At that time I visited the historic houses of both Takasugi and Katsura Kogoro, the political leader of the Choshu revolutionaries. The old woman was selling copies of Takasugi’s biography (by Furukawa Kaoru, published in 1971) in front of his house. She must have been in her eighties – which means Takasugi would have been of her grandfather’s generation. It is entirely possible that her family lived in Hagi for many generations; if so, it is likely that she grew up hearing stories of Takasugi. When I bought a copy of the book, she smiled and told me that Shinsaku would be tickled pink to know that an American was buying his biography!

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Samurai Swordsmen: The Definitive History of the Shinsengumi (Helion, 2026) is now in production.
For professional guidance on Bakumatsu–Meiji Restoration history, see Historical Consulting.
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