Colonel Bagley : "The rebels don't have a single rifle among them. They're savages with bows and arrows."
Nathan Algren : "Whose sole occupation for the last one thousand years has been war."
This is an illuminating discourse for a number of reasons. The first thing that it does is highlight the differences between Algren and Begley; despite Begley's higher rank, he is not such a good strategist as Algren, who has taken the trouble to research his enemy and ascertain their strengths and weaknesses. To Algren, any people whose basic reason for being for ten centuries has been to wage war on their enemies must know what they are doing, rifle or no rifle. Begley, on the other hand, does not study the enemy. He does not study the art of war, believing merely that the army with guns will beat the army without them.
The conversation also suggests why Algren does not like Begley, after his experiences serving under him in the Indian War. Begley has no respect for any culture other than his own, and he believes that any culture other than his own is born from savagery. He views the Native Americans and the Samurai as the same enemy, in that they have far fewer weapons and they lack rifles. He merely views everything that is not like him as something savage, and identical.
Katsumoto : "With this sword, I guarded the Emperor."
Omura : "We are a nation of laws."
Katsumoto : " We are a nation of whores selling ourselves."
Omura : "If we are whores , the samurai made us this way."
When he meets the Emperor, Katsumoto finds that Omura is also present, something he had neither bargained for or wanted. Omura promptly has him arrested for carrying a sword in public, something that is now illegal under the new government. Katsumoto is both angry and offended. He feels disrespected and in a way feels like Omura has also disrespected the sword, and by definition, the way of the Samurai. The sword he is being arrested for carrying was used in defense of the former Emperor.
Omura wants to emphasize to Katsumoto that he is not above the law, even if he is a samurai. He resents the samurai because they were nobles, and privileged, and were able to accomplish the things that his family, as working merchants, were never able to. Now that Omura has power, he wants to avenge this perceived injustice. He blames the samurai for the current situation in the country and for the fact that men like him have to make deals in order to survive; he did not start off with Katsumoto's privilege and does not feel that Katsumoto should be judging him.
Emperor Meiji : "Tell me how he died."
Nathan Algren : "I will tell you how he lived."
Katsumoto had previously been one of Meiji's teachers, and so the Emperor has a tenderness towards him that he does not have towards the other rebels. Without Omura's influence upon him, Meiji and Katsumoto might never hand ended up enemies at all. After Katsumoto's death, Algren interrupts the trade talks to try to impress upon Meiji the importance of honoring Katsumoto's legacy.
To do that, he must tell Meiji the way in which Katsumoto lived. The way in which he died is a symbol of this, a testament to it. In order to understand the man and to honor his legacy , it is far more necessary to understand the honorable way in which he lived his life.
