The rebellion that consumed northern India in 1857 grew from soil that the East India Company had spent decades preparing. The Bengal Army recruited heavily among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims -- Brahmins and Rajputs from Bihar and Awadh, soldiers known as Purbiyas, men whose ritual status the Company had once encouraged and now threatened. Pay had stagnated. The annexation of Awadh and Punjab stripped away the extra stipend for foreign service. Junior European officers treated sepoys as racial inferiors. Then came the new Enfield rifle cartridges, greased with what was rumored to be beef and pig fat -- an insult that cut across Hindu and Muslim faith alike. Soldiers had to bite the cartridges open. The rumor was a spark in a room full of kindling, and by late June the fire had spread from Meerut to Delhi and beyond.

The plan was simultaneous disarmament. At Rawalpindi on the morning of July 7, the garrison was called to parade for what the men believed would be routine orders. Brigadier Campbell of the Royal Artillery then ordered the 58th Bengal Native Infantry and two companies of the 14th to surrender their weapons -- without even informing the units' own British officers. The 58th complied. The two companies of the 14th did not. They seized their arms and fought a running withdrawal through the streets, pursued by Mounted Police. Those who escaped into the town fared worse: local residents captured the fugitives, and their severed heads were delivered to the garrison the following day. It was a grim prelude to what was unfolding seventy miles to the southeast.

Ellice's column arrived at Jhelum on the morning of July 7. When the sepoys of the 14th realized that everyone except the Sikhs among them was to be disarmed, they turned their weapons on the disarming force. Ellice fell early in the charge, wounded in the neck and leg, but the mutineers were pushed back into the adjoining camp of the 39th Bengal Native Infantry. An artillery shell struck the magazine there, and the resulting explosion forced some 300 sepoys to flee to the nearby village of Saemlee, where they barricaded themselves among the buildings. During the lull, soldiers of the 24th discovered the 39th's mess stores -- including its alcohol. Discipline collapsed briefly; only the Bengal Horse Artillery and the Mooltanee cavalry held their positions. When Ellice recovered enough to resume command, he ordered artillery moved closer for a grapeshot bombardment, but the range was suicidal. Artillerymen were picked off by sepoy marksmen sheltered behind village walls. Captain McPherson led a bayonet charge that could not break through. Ammunition ran low, horses fell, and one gun had to be abandoned -- the mutineers tipped it into the river.

Ellice ordered a withdrawal at dusk and set pickets for the night, telegraphing Rawalpindi for reinforcements. Lieutenant Holland arrived with a fresh column of the 24th. But when the attackers advanced at dawn, the village was empty. The remaining mutineers had slipped away in the darkness. They did not get far. Punjabi police had secured the major river crossings and confiscated the boats. Mooltanee cavalry patrolled the far bank. Of the 600 men who had comprised the 14th Bengal Native Infantry at Jhelum, 100 Sikhs had remained loyal throughout, 150 were killed in the fighting, 180 were captured by British or Company forces, and 150 were arrested by the Kashmiri authorities and handed over. Only 50 were never accounted for. The regiment ceased to exist.

The battle produced heroes for both the conquerors and the conquered. Gunner William Connolly of the Bengal Horse Artillery earned a Victoria Cross for his actions at Jhelum on July 7 -- one of the earliest recipients of the award. Ellice was mentioned in dispatches and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. On the other side, Mirza Dildar Baig, also known as Khaki Shah, fought with the mutineers, was captured in Kashmir, and later hanged near the river Jhelum. Indian nationalists would celebrate him as a freedom fighter; a small town in Uttar Pradesh bears his name, and his grave in Jhelum Dildarpur became a shrine. Inside St. John's Church in Jhelum Cantonment -- a Protestant church built in 1860 beside the river, now in Pakistan -- a marble lectern commemorates the 35 soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot who died. Among the names: Captain Francis Spring, eldest son of Colonel William Spring. The church stood closed for forty years before its renovation. The names remain.