Thus empowered by the force of events, his action spread over a wide field, the complete survey of which would comprise many collateral incidents relating to many eminent persons and to several careers of the highest distinction. All that can be undertaken here is to state the principal heads of his proceedings as concerning his conduct individually, with the mention only of a few persons who were so bound up with him that they must be noticed in order to elucidate his unique position.
His first step was to confirm the prompt and decisive measures taken by his lieutenants at Lahore (as already mentioned) under the spur of emergency, whereby the capital of the Punjab was placed beyond the reach of danger.
But he saw in an instant that the self-same danger of mutiny among the native troops, from which Lahore had been saved, menaced equally all the other military stations of the Punjab, namely Jullundur and Ferozepore, both in the basin of the Sutlej river, Sealkote on the Himalayan border, Mooltan commanding the approach to Scinde on the river-highway between the Punjab and the sea, Rawul-Pindi and Peshawur in the region of the Indus, Jhelum commanding the river of that name; at each of which stations a body of Sepoys, possibly mutinous, was stationed. Therefore he proposed that a movable column of European troops should be formed and stationed in a central and commanding position, ready to proceed at once to any station where mutiny might show itself among the Sepoys, to assist in disarming them or in beating them down should they rise in revolt, and to cut off their escape should they succeed in flying with arms in their hands. He procured in concert with the local military authorities the appointment of Neville Chamberlain to command this movable column, and then of John Nicholson, when Chamberlain was summoned to Delhi. There were many technical difficulties in completing this arrangement which indeed was vitally needful, but they were surmounted only by his masterful influence. Chamberlain was already well known to him from service on the Trans-Indus frontier. Nicholson was his nominee specially (having been originally brought forward by his brother Henry) and will be prominently mentioned hereafter. He was indeed instrumental in placing Nicholson in a position which proved of momentous consequence to the country in a crisis of necessity.