The Shinsengumi was a police force organized in the spring of 1863 to guard the shogun, quell sedition and restore law and order in the Imperial capital of Kyoto during the upheaval of the 1860s. The shogun’s government, the Tokugawa Bakufu, was overthrown less than five years later. That the Shinsengumi was on the wrong side of history has no bearing on the allure of its two leaders, Kondo Isami and Hijikawa Toshizo, in the 21stcentury. Which is one of the reasons that I wrote the only historical narrative about the “shogun’s last samurai corps” in English, and I am currently writing a more in-depth history of the Shinsengumi to be published in the future.
[The above photo of the original Miniature Shinsengumi Banner appears in my Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps, courtesy of Hijikata Toshizo Museum.]
