At Baddowal on 21 January 1846, a week before Aliwal, Harry Smith's column marching to relieve Ludhiana was attacked in the rear by Ranjodh Singh Majithia's force, which looted part of its baggage train and cost it a number of men.
It was a Sikh success and it is barely mentioned in the British accounts except as a prelude to Aliwal.
Ludhiana town itself was partially burned during this period.
The village of Baddowal is now on the outskirts of Ludhiana's industrial sprawl.
The Sikh army won engagements in both Anglo-Sikh wars. The reason the wars were lost is not in the fighting, and any account that skips Baddowal, Chillianwala and the first night of Ferozeshah is not describing what happened.
Ranjodh Singh Majithia had crossed the Sutlej with a force that took Fatehgarh and threatened Ludhiana, and the column sent to deal with him was strung out along a road with its convoy trailing behind. Catching a column on the march with its baggage behind it is the oldest thing in war and it worked here exactly as it always has.
The action is a week before Aliwal and is usually given a paragraph as the prelude to it. Aliwal is the battle taught in staff colleges, so Baddowal is remembered as the thing that happened before the thing that is remembered.
Baddowal now sits inside the Ludhiana urban belt on the road toward Jagraon, with industrial units and dhabas along the highway. There is no marker for the engagement and no local memory of it that anyone has written down.