Today in History—April 26: The Midnight Ride of Sybil Ludington

Paul Revere, but make it a 16-year-old girl.

Enter Sybil Ludington.

On this day in 1777, she rode some 40 miles in Putnam county, New York, to alert the scattered militia under her father’s command of the approaching British troops—two years after Revere’s more famous ride.

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At the time, sending riders on horseback to warn of incoming British troops was a common and practical way for militias to communicate across rural areas.

Sybil’s father, Henry, was a militia officer in command of a company of 400 men.

On this night he learned that Maj. Gen. William Tryon had attacked Danbury, Connecticut—15 miles from the Ludington house and the site of important munitions storage for the Continental cause. Col. Ludington began to organize his men.

No one knows if Sybil volunteered or if her father asked her to sound the alarm. The result is the same, however: She rode through the stormy night, rousing men to assemble.

The warning did not halt the raid, but it did give the militia time to muster up and meet the British at nearby Ridgefield. From there, after a battle, the bands of patriots from New York and Connecticut drove the British back to Long Island Sound.

At least, that’s how the story goes.

To be clear, Sybil and her father were very real; it’s just the ride itself where we’re forced to take the family’s word for it. When Sybil’s tale first appeared in 1880, it was in a book with no official sources (and you know how we feel about sources over here). But the author insisted that she’d conducted extensive research, thoroughly interviewed the Ludington family, and pored over their documents.

And to be fair, Paul Revere’s story didn’t appear during his lifetime, either.

But all of this might explain why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did not write “the midnight ride of Sybil Ludington.” (Also because nothing rhymes with “Ludington.”)

The other references to Sybil’s feat are found in letters in the Ludington family archive, cited in the request that Sybil be given credit at the 150th anniversary celebrations of the American Revolution. (Road signs designating her probable route were later put up.)

After all, Revere was captured by the British during his ride; Sybil was not. Probably.

Famous Birthdays

1785: John James Audubon—American artist and ornithologist

1886: Ma Rainey—American singer, called the “mother of the blues”

1798: Eugène Delacroix—French Romantic painter

1963: Jet Li—Chinese actor