The Panjab (Panj five, Ab rivers) and the North-West Provinces — Mian-Mir — Peshawar — Mardan — Ghazi - Ud - Din — Aligarh Rohilkhand — Allahabad — Badli-Kiserai

When Lord Dalhousie annexed the land of the Five Rivers (Panj-Ab) in 1849, Sir Henry Lawrence was appointed President, and his younger brother John Lawrence a member of the Board of Administration, which in five years reconstructed the State, bringing order out of chaos, and law out of anarchy. John Lawrence had sent back from Rawalpindi half the 27th Inniskillings, and Vaughan’s Panjabis under Colonel Chute, and they also were moving on Mardan. Allahabad, a city of 72,000 inhabitants, at the confluence of the Ganges and Jamnah, 70 miles west of Benares, was the scene of the outbreak. When the Mutiny broke out at Meerut, there were 8 British battalions and some artillery stationed between Ambala and Peshawar, 500 miles apart. Colonel Herbert Edwardes and Major John Nicholson immediately urged General Cotton to disarm all the Sipahis at Peshawar except the 21st Bengal Infantry, which was supposed to be faithful.