[1] Skilled in gunnery, she helped defend the Aizu Domain during the Boshin War, earning her the nicknames “Nightingale of Japan” and “Bakumatsu Joan of Arc”.

[6] In 1871, she traveled to Kyoto to look for her brother Yamamoto Kakuma, who had spent years as a prisoner of war in Satsuma custody.

She obtained the tea-master qualification in 1894 and became a tea master of the Urasenke tradition, with the art-name of Niijima Sōchiku (新島宗竹).

Yaeko, with the help of the American missionary Alice J. Starkweather, opened a Joshijuku (small girls' school) at the former residence of the Yanagihara family.

While it contradicted social norms of Edo period Japan, it happened to be balancing for a spirited woman like Yaeko.

[2] Following the sudden death of Neesima on 23 January 1890, Yaeko and her colleagues at Doshisha School gradually began to drift apart.

Doshisha students from Satsuma and Chōshū Domain were not warmly received by her, since they attacked Aizu during the Boshin War.

[2] In her later career, Yaeko turned her focus to nursing and became a member of Japanese Red Cross on 26 April 1890.

In her final years, she maintained her residence on Teramachi Street in Kyoto until she died on 14 June 1932 at the age of 86.

[12] Niijima Yae is a popular historical figure in Japan, and has appeared in various stories, comics (manga), and TV shows.