A Canadian military expedition under Colonel Garnet…
August 1870 CE
A Canadian military expedition under Colonel Garnet Wolseley is dispatched to the Red River as a means of exercising Canadian authority in the settlement and dissuading the Minnesota expansionists.
Ontarians especially look on the purpose of the Wolseley Expedition as the suppression of rebellion, although the government describes it as an "errand of peace".
Learning that Canadian militia elements in the expedition mean to lynch him, Riel flees as the expedition approaches the Red River on August 24.
The arrival of the expedition marks the effective end of the Red River Rebellion.
Smith had accompanied Wolseley, who illegally appoints him as the Acting Governor of Assiniboia pending Lieutenant Governor Adams George Archibald's arrival in the province.