Taylor first saw service with the 11th Bengal Light Cavalry in the Gwalior Campaign of 1843, and at the close of the war was appointed to the bodyguard. In the First Anglo-Sikh War he was severely wounded in a cavalry charge in the Battle of Mudki on 18 December 1845. Sent to Lahore in 1847, he became one of that famous body of men who worked under Henry Lawrence, and subsequently John Lawrence, in the Punjab. That same year he was left in charge of the city of Peshawar, leader of ten thousand Sikh troops and the whole district. Taylor organised a column of four thousand men who departed from Peshawar to occupy the Bannu District, and safely led the men through the Kohat Pass in November-December 1847.