Canada 1861

In 1861 the 4th Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Hawley had been hurriedly dispatched to Canada, to help guard the frontier while the American Civil War was in progress. In 1869 the Battalion returned to England.

Upon the death of Lord Gough on 3rd March, 1869. Field-Marshal H.R.H. George, Duke of Cambridge, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, was appointed Colonel-in-Chief.

In 1867 the 1st Battalion, under command, Lieutenant-Colonel R. J. Fielden, was moved from the Mediterranean to Canada, and on the outbreak of Riel's Rebellion in 1870 was selected by Colonel Wolseley to take part in the Red River Expedition. The force, numbering 1,200, consisted of two guns, R.A., the 1st Battalion 60th Rifles and two specially raised battalions of Canadian Militia. After a journey of 600 miles by land and lake it reached Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior. Leaving Lake Shenandowah, fifty miles east from Lake Superior, on 16th July, the expedition then traversed in boats another 600 miles of a region of rivers, lakes and forest, practically unexplored, and on 24th August reached Fort Garry (now the city of Winnipeg), the headquarters of the rebel forces under Louis Riel. Wolseley pushed on with the 1st Battalion in fifty boats, and took Riel and his followers completely by surprise. Hurriedly the insurgent leader abandoned Fort Garry and the rebellion collapsed.

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