Many of the primary sources — the Oguri Nikki, the diaries kept by those who went on the embassy to the United States — are now in print or published in digital form. A good deal can be looked into from home, without going to a library.
Set down here is which collection each original is in and where it can be seen, down to the volume and number.
The primary sources
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Oguri Tadamasa, Oguri Nikki (the Oguri diaries)
Edited by Honda Natsuhiko; Gunma Prefecture Historical Materials, vol. 7; Gunma Prefecture Cultural Enterprise Promotion Foundation. The basic source for the man: two volumes of diary in his own hand and four of household accounts, set in type. The diaries are two — 354 days from the first month to the last day of the twelfth month of 1867, with no blank day, and from New Year's Day to the second day of the intercalary fourth month of 1868. The last entry of the second is the single line about sending Masahiko to Sannokura and Matakichi to Takasaki; there the pen stops.
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The same: four volumes of household accounts, in the same volume
Ryōnyū Seishutsu-bo (income taken in, outgoings kept down; first month 1850 to fifth month 1855), Katteikata Kanjōchō (the household side's account book; first month 1858 to twelfth month 1859), Kanjōchō (account book; first month 1860 to twelfth month 1861) and Suitō (receipts and payments; first month 1862 to twelfth month 1863). The income and the outgoings of a hatamoto of 2,500 koku can be followed to the single mon. The large surplus at the end of 1859 comes from the “thousand ryō allowance for the voyage to America” paid in the twelfth month; the surplus of 1861, from the allowance for the journey to Tsushima to negotiate with the Russian ship.
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Other sources printed in the same volume
It is easily overlooked, but volume 7 also holds “Muramura Yakunin Negaide Toritsugi-dome” (the register of petitions forwarded by the village officers) and “Boshin Urū-shigatsu: Gotō Hachirōemon Shuki” (Gotō Hachirōemon's notes, intercalary fourth month, 1868), besides two “voyage diaries (extracts)” — one written by Satō Tōshichi, who went with the embassy to the United States, and one taken down by Yanagawa Kenzaburō — and “Oguri Kōzukenosuke's proposal for setting up an exchange office”. The records from the Gonda side and from the embassy side can be read together in this one volume.
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Man'en Gannen Daiichi Kenbei Shisetsu Nikki (the diary of the first embassy to the United States, 1860) and Man'en Gannen Kenbei Shisetsu Shiryō Shūsei (the collected sources on the 1860 embassy to the United States), 7 vols.
The first: America-Japan Society, 1918. Being an old publication, its whole text can be read in the National Diet Library Digital Collections. The second: edited by the committee for the centenary of the treaty of amity and commerce between Japan and the United States, Kazama Shobō, 1961. Its chronological table is what is used for fixing dates.
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Tamamushi Sadayū, Kōbei Nichiroku (a daily record of the voyage to America); Kimura Tetsuta, Kōbei-ki (a record of the voyage to America); Sano Kanae, Hōbei Nikki (a diary of the visit to America)
Diaries of men who went with the embassy. Kimura Tetsuta was an attendant of Oguri's, and listed even the ranks and the pay of the Powhatan's crew. Records of the same journey seen by different eyes stand side by side, and setting them against each other brings the picture into focus.
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Kurimoto Joun, Hōan Ikō (his posthumous papers) and Hōan Jisshu (ten pieces by Hōan)
The papers left by the friend who moved the building of the shipyard along with him, edited by his heir Shūjirō. The chapter “On the management of Yokosuka” is first-hand testimony on how the ironworks was decided and how the work began. This is the book studies cite by page, as “Hōan Ikō, p. 108”. Reprinted by the University of Tokyo Press in 1975.
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Tanabe Taichi, Bakumatsu Gaikō-dan (talks on the diplomacy of the shogunate's last years); Fukuchi Gen'ichirō, Bakufu Suibō-ron (on the decline and fall of the shogunate) and Bakumatsu Seijika (statesmen of the last years of the shogunate)
All in the Heibonsha Tōyō Bunko. Bakumatsu Seijika in particular is Fukuchi's own eyewitness account — he writes “I served directly under Oguri” — and is the standard source when Oguri's handling of finance is discussed.
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Hirano Yajūrō Bakumatsu Ishin Nikki (the diary of Hirano Yajūrō through the last years of the shogunate and the Restoration)
Hokkaido University Press, 2000. How the Tsukiji Hotel was first put to the contractor survives here, in the contractor's own diary.
Where the Oguri Nikki came from
Knowing how the original came down shows what kind of source it is. After Oguri's execution, the man who entered the village of Gonda on the orders of Ōne Ryūtarō, the Tōsandō inspector, and disposed of the Oguri property was Gotō Hachirōemon, a wholesaler of the post town of Shibukawa. He went on with the disposal until the twenty-fifth day of the intercalary fourth month, and most of the documents that would not sell, with the letters touching France, were burned. Out of them Hachirōemon put the diaries and the account books inside his coat and carried them home.
They lay at the bottom of a chest in the Gotō house at Shibukawa for over eighty years, until September 1952, when Honda Natsuhiko, a prefectural adviser on cultural property, found them on a routine visit to look at records. Gunma Prefecture designated them an important cultural property of the prefecture in 1956 and printed them as volume 7 of the historical materials. The “report of investigation” at the front of that volume is the report Honda wrote for the designation, recording the measurements of the originals, the number of sheets and the state of the covers.
Looking for yourself — how to use the digital archives
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One: the National Diet Library Digital Collections (dl.ndl.go.jp)
Publications from 1868 to the 1920s can be searched in full text. Searching a personal name and going to the staff lists, directories of notables and the official gazette can show where and when a person was employed. Registering for the transmission service for individuals opens much of the material once limited to the reading room for reading at home. -
Two: National Diet Library Search (ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp)
The holdings of libraries across the country can be searched together. Local publications are not in the trade — the Gunma Kenshiryō-shū (Gunma Prefecture Historical Materials) and the Kurabuchi Mura-shi (the Kurabuchi village history), for instance — so the quickest way is to find the holding library here and order it through a library near you. -
Three: the National Archives of Japan Digital Archive (digital.archives.go.jp)
The official records of the Meiji government. For the proclamations of the Dajōkan, and for officials' service records. -
Four: the Imperial Household Archives (the Archives and Mausolea Department catalogue and image system)
The records of the Imperial Household Ministry, the Imperial Household Office and the Imperial Household Agency. Records of appointment and resignation survive for those who served in the ministry, and can give a person's year and month of birth, family status and original domicile. Reading is by appointment. -
Five: the Gunma Prefectural Archives (archives.pref.gunma.jp)
Documents on the villages of Gonda and Kurabuchi, the Meiji-era registers of temples, and more. The quickest way is to get your bearings with the catalogue search and then ask at the reference desk. -
Six: a library's reference desk
Ask in concrete terms — “I want to follow this person”, “I want to check this matter in this year” — and you will be shown material you would not have thought of yourself. It costs nothing, and it works best.
Sources: Honda Natsuhiko, ed., Oguri Nikki (the Oguri diaries), Gunma Prefecture Historical Materials vol. 7, Gunma Prefecture Cultural Enterprise Promotion Foundation (the “report of investigation on the Oguri Kōzukenosuke diaries and household accounts”, and the afterword to that volume); Sakamoto Fujiyoshi, Oguri Kōzukenosuke no Shōgai (the life of Oguri Kōzukenosuke), Kōdansha, 1987; Abe Dōzan, Kaigun no Senkusha Oguri Kōzukenosuke Seiden (a true life of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, pioneer of the navy), Kaigun Yūshūkai, 1941; Koitabashi Ryōhei, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (the tragedy of the Oguri family), Asao-sha.