Byakkotai The was a group of around 305 young , teenage , samurai of the Aizu domain , who fought in the Boshin War ( 1868 – 1869 ) . History . Byakkotai was part of Aizu ' s four - unit military , set up in the domain ' s drive to finalize its military modernization , in the wake of the Battle of Toba - Fushimi . The other three units were Genbutai , Seiryūtai , and Suzakutai . Each of the four was named after the protecting gods of compass directions . Byakkotai was meant to be a reserve unit , as it was composed of the young , 16 to 17 year old sons of Aizu samurai . It was subdivided further , along the lines of rank within the domain ' s samurai population : two squads were from the upper ( " shichū " ) rank , two from the middle rank ( " yoriai " ) , and two from the lowest ( " ashigaru " ) . Twenty of the members of the 2nd " shichū " squad , cut off from the rest of their unit in the wake of the Battle of Tonoguchihara , retreated to , which overlooked the castle town . From there , they saw what they thought was the castle on fire , and committed seppuku ( with one failed attempt ) in desperation , believing their lord and families dead . However these 20 Byakkotai members were mistaken in their assessment of defeat , as the castle defenses had not actually been breached ; the castle town surrounding the inner citadel was aflame . As the majority of the town was between Iimori Hill and the castle , the boys saw the rising smoke and assumed that the castle itself had fallen . The 19 Byakkotai members who committed suicide were the following : The sole survivor , Iinuma Sadakichi , attempted suicide but was unsuccessful . He was saved by a local peasant . After the war , he moved to the nearby city of Sendai , and lived there until his death . He also served as an officer in the army ( retiring with the rank of captain ) and as an official of the local post office in Sendai . After the war , their bodies remained exposed to the elements until permission was finally granted by the imperial government to bury them . A memorial was later erected at Iimori Hill , and all 20 of the Byakkotai members named above are buried there . A stone bearing a poem by Matsudaira Katamori also stands at the site : 幾人の 涙は石にそそぐとも その名は世々に 朽じとぞ思う " Ikutari no namida wa ishi ni sosogu tomo sono na wa yoyo ni kuji to zo omou " " No matter how many people wash the stones with their tears , these names will never vanish from the world . " The rest of the Byakkotai continued to fight over the course of the Battle of Aizu , with many of the members contributing to the defense of the castle . Many Byakkotai members survived the war . Two of them who went on to prominent roles during the Meiji Era were the physicist and historian Dr . Yamakawa Kenjirō and the Imperial Japanese Navy admiral Dewa Shigetō . Benito Mussolini and the Byakkotai . The Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini heard of the story of the Byakkotai members who committed suicide , and was deeply impressed by their loyalty to their lord . In 1928 , he donated a column from Pompeii to be erected by the graves at Iimori Hill ; this column remains there to the present day . Depictions in Media . The Byakkotai have been the topic of many plays , books , films , and TV series . One notable TV depiction was produced in 1986 ; another , more recently , was the 2007 TV drama , which starred Yamashita Tomohisa , Tanaka Koki and Fujigaya Taisuke . Yamashita portrayed another Byakkotai survivor , Sakai Mineji . The Byakkotai are featured as a unit exclusive to the Aizu clan in .