Taylor – Mutiny Reflections

Although it can be said that the men for the crisis had mastered the initial stages of the mutiny in the Punjab, it was hardly the end of the insurrection. The measures taken had certainly been draconian regarding disarmament and punishment, but there would still be regiments that would slip through the hands of Sir John Lawrence.

The first such was in Rawalpindi and Jhelum, in July. While at Rawalpindi, the disarming would go more or less to plan; at Jhelum, the opinions of the 14th BNI differed vastly from those of their officers. In the battle that followed, Gunner William Connolly would find himself as a recipient of a Victoria Cross.

The next station to face mutiny in the Punjab would be Sialkote, a direct consequence of the events at Jhelum. Instead of attacking their officers during the day, the mutiny broke out at 4 in the morning. In the confusion and mess that followed, Sialkote would be destroyed, and the mutineers would make good their escape. However, luck would not be on their side, and they would be thwarted from convincing others to join their ranks by quick-thinking civilians such as Major Reynell Taylor. Things would then go from bad to worse for the Sialkote Brigade as they were now fashioned, who would meet their end at a final battle at Trimmu Ghat, where they would learn what John Nicholson meant when he said, “The Punishment for Mutiny is Death.”

While it is debatable if Nicholson’s actions at Trimmu Ghat were justifiable, it can at least be said that the Sialkote Brigade went out fighting. Not so the 26th BNI, whose greatest misfortune was to meet a man named Frederick Cooper, a man who should never have been unleashed in the Punjab, much less anywhere else in the world. His barbarity made even the EICo blush and caused outrage in the House of Parliament.