1857 War of Independence is significant, for the simple reason that it was the most successful fight by Indians against British rule in entire colonial history as Indian revolutionaries conquered territories from Delhi to Cooch Behar to Gwalior which were under British occupation in year 1857. The British feringhees were never more than 75000 at any stage in their rule and pitting them against crores of Indians is actually a no-brainer on who will win if 75000 British people go to battle against say 100 crore Indians.
First of all it was not a Sepoy Mutiny it was a full fledged War of Independence in which the above mentioned territories from Delhi to Bengal to Gwalior were regained by Indians (the British underplayed this movement by calling it the Sepoy Mutiny and did not share entire facts because it was the most successful fight against the British and the British even suppressed true history of 1857). However given the question above the real Hindu-Muslim unity was seen in the war of 1857 as most Hindus and Muslims had learnt a lesson in 1857 to resolve differences and unite (sadly the lesson learnt was forgotten later and is no longer relevant after partition)
The British won the War of 1857 because:
a) the Indian revolutionaries fought bravely in multiple parts of the country but were never organized.
b) the British has superior systems of communication due to which it was easier for them to send war time messages to each other easily which Indian revolutionaries could not. The British could send divide and rule messages and spread gaslighting information very easily too. Communication was a major hurdle for Indian revolutionaries.
c) Tatya Tope, Nanasaheb Peshwa (younger), Raosaheb Peshwa, Rani Laxmibai and other allies preferred Bahadur Shah Zafar as the King and made him sit in the throne of Delhi in 1857 after they first conquered Delhi. However this did not go well with Rajputs and Sikhs who did not want Bahadur Shah Zafar as leader and opposed this move.
d) the British East India Company was rich and could buy off allies of the revolutionaries. Treachery was rampant as Jeyaji Shinde sided with the British.
e) The British had superior weaponry (the Indians also had, but not in all places).
f) there was a leadership vacuum for Indian revolutionaries as most stalwarts like Mangal Pandey, Raosaheb Peshwa, Rani Laxmibai, Tatya Tope died early in the revolution or captured and imprisoned as Bahadur Shah Zafar was. Even Maharaja Kumar Singh of Jagdishpur died a late martyr from his war wounds days after defeating the British.
The British were so terrified as to what could happen if Indians actually united and went to war against them that after 1857 they took every single effort to strip Indians of weapons (it may be noted that major revolutionaries groups in later days like Abhinav Bharat and Ghadar Party had to procure weapons from abroad). The British also formed the Congress in 1885 as a peace loving alternative and a safety valve to curb rebellion to prevent Indians from taking up arms against them.
This is also the reason why the Naval Mutiny of 1946 bothered the British so much in which the plan was that Indians serving in the British Armed Forces would get trained from the British and switch sides and join Netaji Bose's Azad Hind Fouz and carry out a coup.
Veer Savarkar was the first to call 1857 as the War of Independence in his book by that name instead of the British word of Uprising which the British used to undermine and cover up the history of 1857. His book 1857 war of independence inspired Netaji Bose and Bhagat Singh despite the fact that British imposed bans on the book. Bhagat Singh circulated 2500 copies of the book in 1928 defying the ban and called it the Bible for all Indian revolutionaries. Mahmud Ali took a loan from Lord Sydneham to purchase Savarkar's book.
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