Activity in The 1860s
Gensai was present at the Kumamoto residence in Edo during the Ansei Purge. In the aftermath of Ii Naosuke's assassination, when a group of the escaping assassins suddenly entered the residence, it was Gensai who calmed down the subsequent uproar, calling for a doctor and having a private tea ceremony for the men. It was during this ceremony that he told the men of his admiration for them.
In 1861, Gensai married Misawa Teiko, the daughter of another Kumamoto retainer. A martial artist herself, she was highly skilled in the use of the naginata. The couple would have a son, Gentarō, who survived even after Gensai's execution, thanks to Teiko's efforts.
In 1862, he joined Kumamoto forces who were posted to security duty in Kyoto. It was at this point, he quit his job as bōzu, and soon after, left Kumamoto service altogether. In 1864, he lost his mentor Miyabe Teizō to a Shinsengumi raid at Ikedaya. Soon after, Gensai carried out his most famous and only confirmed assassination: that of Sakuma Shōzan. He killed Shōzan in one stroke, in broad daylight. While other assassinations have been attributed to him, only his murder of Shōzan can be proven.
After this, he withdrew to Chōshū and took part in the military actions of Takasugi Shinsaku's Kiheitai against the shogunate's Choshu Expeditions. However, during action in Kokura, he surrendered to Kumamoto forces, and was imprisoned until just after the Meiji Restoration.
Read more about this topic: Kawakami Gensai
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“Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)