"Armstrong replied that he was following orders."

And there it is... the Nuremberg defense....  Befehl ist Befehl.

Louis Riel is remembered as either a working class hero or a traitor depending on which side of the great divide one is positioned.

"We have allowed ourselves to fall into the hands of a Government which only thinks of us to pillage us. Had he only understood what God did for us before Confederation, we should have been sorry to see it coming. And the half-breeds of the North-West would have made conditions of a nature to preserve for our children that liberty, that possession of the soil, without which there is no happiness for anyone; but fifteen years of suffering, impoverishment and underhand, malignant persecution have opened our eyes; and the sight of the abyss of demoralization into which the Dominion is daily plunging us deeper and deeper every day, has suddenly, by God's mercy, as it were, stricken us with horror."

- Louis Riel