Saigo read the letter carefully. His resolve remained unshaken. The war had cost the imperial forces more than 6,000 troops killed and 10,000 wounded, while the much smaller samurai army had lost 7,000 dead and 11,000 wounded. Too much blood had been spilled, but honor forbade surrender. Calling his closest friends to his dugout, Saigo spent his last night in a sake party.

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Following an intensive artillery bombardment that lasted most of the night of September 24, imperial forces stormed the mountain at 3 a.m. By 6 a.m., only 40 rebels were still alive. While being carried toward Iwasakiguchi, Saigo was wounded in the thigh and stomach. Losing blood rapidly, he selected a suitable spot to die. One of his most loyal followers, Shinsuke Beppu, carried him farther down the hill on his shoulders. Then, kneeling on the ground, Saigo had Beppu cut off his head with a single sword stroke. A servant hid the head to keep it from falling into enemy hands. At that point, Beppu and the last of the samurai drew their swords and plunged downhill toward the enemy positions until the last of them was mowed down.

By 7 a.m., the Satsuma Rebellion was over. The greatest threat to the Meiji government was also the last of a series of civil wars that had raged through Japan for 1,500 years. Ironically, the conflict did more to defeat samurai goals than any act of legislation could have done. Fighting to preserve the old order, the samurai had gone down in bloody defeat to modern weapons wielded by the lower-class soldiers they despised. The modern Japanese army had passed its first test and would soon develop into a force that would terrorize Asia and briefly humble the Western forces of Russia, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and the United States.

In spite of the futility of his cause, however, Takamori Saigo’s integrity and strength of convictions left a lasting impression on both the people and the government he had opposed. The latter posthumously withdrew the brand of traitor from his name and made his son a marquess. Later honored by a statue in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, Saigo is still popularly regarded as a heroic figure: the last of the noble samurai.

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