was a Japanese samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 of the late Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

, who served the Matsudaira clan

Matsudaira clan

The was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. It first originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province . Over the course of its history, the clan produced many branches, most of which also centered around Mikawa Province...

 of Aizu

Aizu

is an area comprising the westernmost third of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. The principal city of the area is Aizuwakamatsu.During the Edo period, Aizu was a feudal domain known as and part of Mutsu Province.-History:...

. Born in Aizuwakamatsu, Akizuki was recognized early as a skilled scholar, and studied at the Tokugawa Shogunate's Shoheizaka school, in Edo. He served as an advisor to Matsudaira Katamori

Matsudaira Katamori

was a samurai who lived in the last days of the Edo period and the early to mid Meiji period. He was the 9th daimyo of the Aizu han and the Military Commissioner of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu period. During the Boshin War, Katamori and the Aizu han fought against the Meiji Government armies, but...

, and was present for most of the latter's tenure as Kyoto Shugoshoku

Kyoto Shugoshoku

The ' was a Japanese bureaucratic office of the Tokugawa shogunate from 1862 through 1868. The officeholder was responsible for keeping the peace in the city of Kyoto and its environs, and in this role, largely supplanted the extant office of Kyoto Shoshidai, though the two offices existed side by...

 from 1862 to 1867. Akizuki was a senior commander of Aizu forces during the Boshin War

Boshin War

The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court....

. After the war, he became an educator, and worked in high schools in Kyushu. Later in his life, he was a colleague of Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn , known also by the Japanese name , was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things...

, who referred to him in his writings.