尾張藩草莽隊始末攷

Abstract

In the 1st year of Meiji (1868), at the juncture of the Boshin War, which was fought between the Imperial Court and the Tokugawa Shogunate, a militia corps, known as Somo-Tai, was organized in great haste by the Owari Clan's command and was made to participate in the war. The present writer has tried to elucidate the character of this corps by restoring to the original state the process of organizing it, its war services, and the general movement of its personnel subsequent to the demobilization, in accordance with the new data discovered by himself. This is also an attempt to clarify the relation between the Jiyu-Minken Undo (an antigovernment movement during the second decade of Meiji) and chivalrous-spirited gamblers from the viewpoint of the Somo-Tai.