British victory at the Battle of Sobraon, Nicholson was taken under the wing of Henry Montgomery Lawrence along with several other similarly aged officers such as Herbert Edwardes, James Abbott, Neville Chamberlain, Frederick Mackeson, Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew, William Hodson, Reynell Taylor, Harry Burnett Lumsden, Henry Daly, John Coke, this group was known as Henry Lawrence's "Young Men". As part of this small band of young and driven men, Nicholson was given much power as a political officer on the North-West Frontier. His first posting in this new role was in July 1846 to the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir where he was to help solidify the rule of the British-installed Maharaja, Gulab Singh. Singh, however, was not a popular ruler in Kashmir and Nicholson took part in the suppression of a revolt against his rule. He spent the remainder of 1846 isolated in the Kashmir Valley serving as the sole British advisor to Singh at his court in Srinagar. To his relief, Nicholson was recalled to Lahore by Lawrence in February 1847. Nicholson's next significant assignment was helping James Abbot win over the various tribes of the Hazara region which he did by partaking in a daring nighttime raid against the Tahirkheli tribe's mountain stronghold, after which Nicholson and Abbott would form a strong friendship. The murders of Patrick Vans Agnew and Lieutenant William Anderson on 20 April 1848 signaled the beginning of a Punjab-wide Sikh rebellion which soon became the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Initially, the East India Company was unprepared to deploy their army to the Punjab which meant that their political officers, including Nicholson, were completely isolated and effectively on their own in trying to maintain the British presence in the Punjab. It was in this vulnerable position that Nicholson was to display his soon to be characteristic nature of acting decisively and on his own initiative. He left Peshawar with a troop of irregular Pakthun horsemen and rode straight for the vital fort at Attock which, if controlled by the enemy, could sever the British line of communication. Upon arrival to the fort at first light, Nicholson rode straight past the stunned Sikh sentries guarding the main gate. When the Sikh sepoys further inside the fort raised their weapons against him, Nicholson leaped from his horse and wrestled the musket away from the nearest sepoy before shouting at them to lay down their arms and