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May–September 1868 (Keiō 4)
Nagaoka, Echigo Province (present-day Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture)
Forces
Imperial (New Government) Forces
Nagaoka Domain / Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei
About 16 min read
In Keio 4 (1868), Nagaoka Domain of Echigo (present-day Niigata Prefecture) confronted Imperial government forces as a member of the Ōuetsu Alliance. The protagonist of this conflict was Nagaoka Domain elder Kawai Tsugusuke—a figure also called "the last samurai," who fought through the age of firearms at the sunset of the age of the sword.
Kawai Tsugusuke (1827–1868) was an elder of Nagaoka Domain who championed domain reforms and devoted himself to modernizing the domain's military system. He studied under Sakuma Shōzan in Edo and researched Dutch military science in Nagasaki, demonstrating a cosmopolitan outlook remarkable for a samurai of his era.
Tsugusuke's deployment of Gatling guns among the earliest combat uses in Japan is worthy of historical note. The Gatling gun, a multi-barrel rotating machine gun developed in America in the 1860s, was acquired by Tsugusuke in two units through foreign trading houses in Yokohama. This adoption of advanced weaponry embodied a curious marriage of samurai spirit and modern armament.
Furthermore, Tsugusuke himself possessed swordsmanship skills and records attest to his training in the Hokushin Ichiryu school. While sword training formed his spiritual foundation as a samurai, firearms and artillery dominated the actual battlefield—perhaps no figure at the end of the shogunate embodied this temporal contradiction as profoundly as Tsugusuke. His actions were the very embodiment of "a samurai born in the age of the sword, living in the age of the gun."
After Tsugusuke took office as elder, Nagaoka Domain undertook sweeping reforms. Financial restructuring, talent recruitment, adoption of Western-style weapons, and military modernization—Tsugusuke's executive ability in implementing all of these in a short period stood out among late-shogunate samurai statesmen.
The two Gatling guns purchased by Nagaoka Domain were cutting-edge weaponry in Japan at the time. Though the acquisition cost imposed significant financial strain on the domain, Tsugusuke held the conviction that "without modern weapons, the domain cannot defend itself" and executed this vision. As a figure who championed his domain's transition from the age of spirit symbolized by the sword to the age of practical power dominated by firearms, Tsugusuke left a unique imprint on Japanese history.
In early May 1868 (Keio 4), peace negotiations were held between the Imperial government forces advancing into Echigo and Nagaoka Domain at Jigenji Temple in Ojiya (the Ojiya Negotiations). Kawai Tsugusuke, representing Nagaoka Domain, advocated for armed neutrality—remaining on neither side—but the government representative, Iwamura Seiichiro, rejected this proposal.
Tsugusuke's position was "Nagaoka Domain favors neither side; allow us the choice not to fight to protect Echigo's people." However, for Imperial forces wielding the banner of overthrowing the shogunate, neutrality was not an option. When confronted with the demand to "lay down your swords," Tsugusuke faced what amounted to the abandonment of samurai honor. The negotiations collapsed, and Nagaoka Domain chose to fight against the government forces.
The scene of the Ojiya Negotiations stands as a particularly emblematic moment in late-shogunate history. Tsugusuke's attempt to avert conflict through diplomacy and the regret that followed remain a theme explored by countless writers and historians in subsequent generations.
On May 19, Nagaoka forces launched a preemptive strike, clashing near Settaya. In this engagement, Tsugusuke deployed Gatling guns, inflicting heavy casualties on the government forces. This battle, marking the transition from the era of simple swords, spears, and muskets to the age of machine guns, represented a watershed moment in Japanese military history.
However, by late May, Nagaoka Castle fell to government forces. Continuing to fight even as his forces retreated, Tsugusuke achieved a miraculous recapture of Nagaoka Castle through a night assault on July 25. This "Recapture of Nagaoka Castle" is remembered as one of the greatest miracles of the Boshin War. In retaking the castle, Nagaoka warriors skilled in swordsmanship conducted hand-to-hand combat under cover of darkness, relying not only on modern weaponry but also on samurai tactics.
Yet the recapture lasted only two days; on July 29, Nagaoka Castle fell once again. In this engagement, Tsugusuke sustained a grave gunshot wound to his leg.
Tsugusuke embodied a paradoxical ideal: practicing the spirit of the sword era with the weapons of the gun age. Though wielding modern firearms, he never compromised his samurai honor or loyalty to his domain. His stance offered one answer to the question faced by late-shogunate samurai: "How shall we live and die?"
Though records of swords seeing actual combat in Nagaoka's battles are limited, the domain's warriors never abandoned their blades. The sword yielded its practical role to the rifle while remaining as a symbol and emblem of samurai pride, worn at the waist to the very end. Tsugusuke himself, it is said, never relinquished his sword even while fleeing through the mountains of Echigo despite his severe wounds.
Multiple accounts exist concerning the sword that Tsugusuke used. The swordsmanship and spirit he cultivated through training in the Hokushin Ichiryu school would be reflected in his judgment and command ability on the actual battlefield. That Tsugusuke, who established his spiritual foundation as a samurai through sword training, ultimately fought with firearms and fell to a bullet, stands as an emblematic event of the late-shogunate era.
Severely wounded, Tsugusuke attempted to reach Aizu by crossing the Hachijira Pass through the Echigo mountains, but died on August 16 at Shiozawa (now Tadami Town, Fukushima Prefecture). He was 42 years old. His final moments became the stuff of legend, and he remains a source of pride for Nagaoka citizens as "the samurai who fought to the end."
Tsugusuke's grave in Shiozawa continues to receive visitors. Nagaoka City is home to the Kawai Tsugusuke Memorial Museum, where relics and documents associated with Tsugusuke are displayed. Among the artifacts on display are swords and blades, bearing witness that Tsugusuke lived to the end as a samurai who bore arms.
Shortly after Tsugusuke's death, Nagaoka Domain surrendered. The Ōuetsu Alliance began to collapse, and northeastern domains surrendered to the government one by one. Though Nagaoka Domain faced substantial reductions in stipend, natives of Nagaoka went on to distinguish themselves in business, politics, and military affairs after the Meiji Restoration, and the "Nagaoka spirit" is remembered to the present day.
From the perspective of Japanese sword history, the Northern Echigo Boshin War stands as an emblematic conflict of the transition "from sword to gun." With Gatling guns deployed in earnest on a Japanese battlefield for the first time, this war simultaneously announced both the end of the samurai age and the dawn of modern warfare.
Yet Nagaoka warriors continued to wear swords to the very end. Though swords lost their status as practical weapons, they remained as spiritual pillars of samurai identity. This was the final era in which Japanese samurai fought bearing the sword. A decade later, the Edict on the Abolition of the Samurai Topknot (Meiji 9, 1876) would forbid public sword-wearing.
The life of Kawai Tsugusuke is told as a testament to a samurai who lived simultaneously in the age of the sword's spirit and the age of the gun's dominance. In the late-shogunate transition, Tsugusuke did not abandon the samurai spirit symbolized by the sword while also directly confronting the winds of change; his life shaped one of the archetypes of the Japanese conception of bushidō.
Even as Tsugusuke introduced modern military systems in his domain reforms, swordsmanship training as a martial art continued, and samurai refined their blade skills alongside training with modern weapons. This "coexistence of sword and gun" symbolized the culture of late-shogunate Nagaoka Domain. The domain's character—advancing modernization while never abandoning the sword as the soul of the samurai—illuminates the essence of late-shogunate bushidō.
Nagaoka preserves both materials documenting Tsugusuke's deeds and the surviving swords and blades wielded by domain samurai, bearing witness to how practical blades forged by Echigo smiths sustained combat in the final shogunate years. These swords embody the Echigo tradition of prioritizing utility over artistic refinement, and they stand as precious heritage conveying the diversity of Japanese sword culture to modern times. That Tsugusuke maintained his resolve to bear arms until the very end proves that swords transcended mere weapons to become spiritual pillars.