Shinsengumi. Romulus Hillsborough

sword in hand.” Once when Hijikata returned home on a brief interlude from his duties in Kyōto, he reportedly told a gathering of family and friends that the steel blade of one of his swords had rotted from overexposure to human blood.

      Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō left their homes in the east driven by an unyielding will to power. They saw the great turmoil in the west as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put their formidable fencing skills to the fight, to rise through the ranks of the Tokugawa hierarchy. That these sons of peasants could even dream of such accomplishments, unprecedented during Tokugawa history, was certainly due to their extraordinary sense of self-importance.

      Accompanying them were six particularly skilled swordsmen, each of whom would be among the original Shinsengumi members. Child prodigy Okita Sōji was the eldest son of a samurai of Shirakawa Han, whose daimyō was a direct retainer of the shōgun. According to Okita family records, Okita was born at the Shirakawa residence in Edo in 1844. Having lost both parents as a young boy, at nine he was apprenticed at the Shieikan, where he grew up looking to Kondō Isami as an elder brother. At twelve, Okita was matched against the fencing instructor of the Lord of Shirakawa, and was victorious. By age fifteen, he was serving as assistant instructor of the Shieikan, teaching at the main dōjō in Edo and at villages around the local countryside. There were some who claimed that not even Kondō could beat Okita in a match. Naturally Okita received menkyo rank. When Kondō Isami became master of the Shieikan, Okita was appointed as head of the dōjō.

      Nagakura Shinpachi idolized Kondō Isami, who was five years his senior. He was a rōnin of Matsumae Han, whose daimyō was an outside lord. Nagakura was born at the Matsumae residence in Edo in 1839, the only son of a well-situated samurai of that clan. The Nagakura family was related by marriage to the Lord of Matsumae. For generations the family patriarch had been permanently stationed in Edo as a liaison officer for the Matsumae domain, located on the island of Ezo in the far north. Nagakura began his kenjutsu career as a young boy. He originally studied under his father’s instructor, an acclaimed master of the Shintō Munen style. As one of the master’s top students, he achieved the level of mokuroku at the young age of seventeen. In his early twenties he put his fencing skills to the test, touring schools of other styles in the vicinity of the capital. After returning to Edo, he served as assistant instructor to a master of the prestigious Hokushin Ittō style. It was around this time that he began frequenting Kondō Isami’s dōjō. Although he never became an official member of the Shieikan, according to Nagakura’s oral recollections, it was he who urged Kondō and the others to enlist in the Rōshi Corps.

      Yamanami Keisuké, one year older than Kondō Isami, was born in 1833. He was the second son of the chief fencing instructor of Sendai Han in northern Japan, also ruled by an outside lord. When Yamanami came to the Shieikan, he held menkyo rank in the Hokushin Ittō style. He challenged the sword master’s heir to a match. After Kondō defeated him, Yamanami joined the Shieikan as one of its most skilled swordsmen. He subsequently served with Hijikata and Okita as assistant instructor.

      Inoué Genzaburō was born in Hino in 1829, the fourth son of a Tokugawa samurai. He was the eldest of the eight Shieikan swordsmen who enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. Genzaburō’s father, who served the shōgun as a petty police official, encouraged his sons to practice the martial arts. Genzaburō began practicing at the dōjō of Satō Hikogorō at a young age. Both he and his older brother, Matsugorō, received menkyo rank from Kondō Shūsuké.

      Tōdō Heisuké was born in 1844. He claimed to be the illegitimate son of the outside Lord of Tsu Han, whose family name was Tōdō. The obscurity of his background notwithstanding, it is certain that Tōdō Heisuké was a rōnin when he earned mokuroku rank in the Hokushin Ittō style at the famed Chiba Dōjō. He was subsequently apprenticed at the Shieikan. Tōdō was the same age as Okita Sōji, just nineteen, when he enlisted in the Rōshi Corps.

      Harada Sanosuké was born in Matsuyama Han in 1840. The Matsuyama daimyō ranked among the twenty Related Houses. His domain was located in the province of Iyo on Shikoku, the smallest of the four main Japanese islands. When Harada began frequenting Kondō’s dōjō, he brought with him his expertise in yarijutsu, the art of the spear. A failed attempt to commit suicide by his own sword left him with a scar on his abdomen—a single horizontal line. He adopted the mark as part of his family crest—a single horizontal line in a circle.

      A seventh Shinsengumi corpsman with a particularly close connection to the Shieikan was Saitō Hajimé. The same age as Okita and Tōdō, Saitō, unusually tall at five feet eleven inches, shared with these two men the distinction of being the youngest of Kondō’s group and among its most gifted swordsmen. Saitō was born and raised in Edo as the son of a retainer of the Matsudaira of Akashi Han, also a Related House. Saitō had neither enlisted in Kiyokawa’s Rōshi Corps nor traveled to Kyōto with the others. He had reportedly killed a samurai of the shōgun’s camp in Edo shortly before fleeing to Kyōto and joining his friends.

      Serizawa Kamo was born in the first year of Tenpō—1830—four years before his rival Kondō Isami. He was the pampered youngest son of a wealthy, low-ranking samurai family of Mito Han. An expert swordsman of the Shintō Munen style, he stood tall and erect—an excessively proud man, well built and endowed with extraordinary physical strength. As if to flaunt his strength, he carried a heavy iron-ribbed fan, with which he threatened to pummel men who got in his way. Engraved on his weapon-fan were eight Chinese characters which read, “Serizawa Kamo, loyal and patriotic samurai.”

      The “loyal and patriotic samurai” was a handsome man, with a light complexion and small dark eyes that penetrated the defenses of his many adversaries. He was as gallant as he was brutal, as courageous as cruel. He was a reckless man of fine breeding, a pathological drinker who, when in his cups, was known to draw his sword upon the slightest provocation. Before joining the Rōshi Corps, he had served as a captain in the rabidly xenophobic and pro-imperial Tengu Party in Mito Han, the birthplace of Sonnō-Jōi. Serizawa was in command of some three hundred men of the Tengu Party. It was rumored that he had punished several wrongdoers among them by severing their fingers, hands, noses, or ears. He was eventually imprisoned and sentenced to death in Edo for the cold-blooded murder of three subordinates who had aroused his ire over some petty offense. In jail he refused food. The leaden winter sky, barely visible through the small window of his cold, dank cell, recalled to him the snowy landscape outside. He likened his lot to that of the snow-laden plum blossom. He bit open his small finger, and with the blood composed his intended death poem.

      Amidst the desolation of snow and frost,

      the plum is the first to bloom in brilliant color.

      The blossoms keep their fragrance,

      even after they have scattered.

      Before his execution could be carried out, he was released in the general amnesty proclaimed by the Bakufu to recruit men for the Rōshi Corps. Now, in the spring of 1863, he was in command of not a rebel group but a legitimate corps of swordsmen in the service of the shōgun.

      Serizawa’s notoriety preceded him to the Imperial Capital. When the Rōshi Corps reached Kyōto in February, it is said that the townspeople shook with fear of the “demon Serizawa.” A dominating personality with a voracious sexual appetite, the “demon” was reputed to have his way with other men’s wives. In his youth he had reportedly raped and impregnated three maids at his family’s home. As commander of the Shinsengumi, it was his duty to protect the Imperial Court. But this did not deter him from making advances upon the lover of Anénokoji Kintomo, a court noble and leader of the Sonnō-Jōi faction surrounding the emperor. When the matter was brought to the attention of the protector of Kyōto, he ordered Serizawa, in no uncertain terms, to cease his transgressions among the court nobles.

      Serizawa had allegedly raped the wife of a wealthy merchant in his native Mito. The wife was subsequently enraptured and begged Serizawa to keep her with him. It has been suggested that Serizawa’s pathological behavior was a result of syphilis, and that he had contracted the dread disease from this woman, a former geisha. Perhaps it was a combination of the disease and his anger at having been infected that incited a fit of violence toward the woman, during which he cut her body in two and hurled it into