In the spring of 1860, three samurai ambassadors (Niimi Masaoki, Muragaki Norimasa, and Oguri Tadasun) and 74 members of a samurai delegation visited the United States for the first direct cultural exchange since the start of national isolation in 1603. The Tokugawa Shogunate dispatched the mission for the purpose of exchanging ratifications of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the US, which granted the US privileges in trade and diplomacy.

Roughly 5,000 members of the New York State Militia received the Japanese delegation and escorted them from the Battery to their headquarters at the Metropolitan Hotel. Thousands of New Yorkers gathered to watch the procession.