If you poll American citizens, ninety-five percent will be able to tell you who Paul Revere is. Most can also tell you that his two-hour, fourteen mile ride in good weather over the best roads of the day, was one of the most heroic acts of the American Revolution. Less than five percent of those same Americans could tell you who Sybil Ludington was, let alone recount the terrifying ride of this Revolutionary heroine.
Born in 1761 to Colonel Henry Ludington, Sybil did what all girls of the period did. She attended her eleven younger siblings. She helped her mother around their home, cleaning, cooking, weaving, and sewing. Because of the customs of the day, Sybil was not formally educated, only her brothers were sent to school.
While she did learn to read and write at home, she was not proficient. Sybil was not particularly saddened by her lack of education. She had much better things to do. When she was still a child, her mother had proclaimed her a tomboy. Every minute of her spare time was spent out of doors riding her father’s thoroughbred gelding. At the age of fifteen she was given a horse of her own, which she named Star.
Henry Ludington was soon given his own regiment, and Sybil watched them train on the farm. She met and learned about the men her father trained, more than four hundred soldiers in all. Their patriotism was contagious. Having an independent spirit of, Sybil grew eager and impatient to participate in anyway she could.
On the night of April 26, 1777 the Ludington family sat by the fire awaiting the return of the Colonel. He and his militia had been gone for three days to bolster up Patriot supplies. He was due home at any moment, and the family was listening for him through the din of a thunderstorm.
As he walked through the door, the boys rushed to help him remove his dripping boots and coat, while the girls hied to make tea and warm some supper. However, rest would be long in coming. Before the Colonel could even drink his tea, there came a knock at the door. The soaking wet man had ridden through the storm to tell Ludington that Danbury had been sacked.
The destruction of Danbury mean almost certain disaster, as Ludington well knew. Supplies had recently been moved from Peekskill to Danbury. Food, clothes, rum, munitions, and other necessary supplies were now at the hands of the British. To make matters worse, they were only miles away from taking the Highlands. The Colonel’s men would have to be sent for if they were to prevent the British from advancing any further. They were the only hope.
Ludington couldn’t, himself, rally the troops because he needed to be home to organize them when they arrived. He began to inform the messenger of the routes, but he refused to go after the men. Ludington ordered the man to obey, but he was too frightened and fatigued. Sybil knew the men her father led. She had talked to them. She had dined with them. She had even carried them messages, so she already knew the routes and conditions of the roads. Sybil knew what she had to do; she had to alert her father’s men.
The roads weren’t very safe in the best of conditions, and this was a pitch black, stormy night. Wagon wheels had carved deep ruts into the unpaved dirt making the ride very treacherous on horseback. The woods were full of wild animals, aggressive Native Americans, Royalists, Tories, and highway men. This ride meant almost certain death for anyone, let alone a sixteen year old girl with Patriot loyalties.
Sybil mounted Star, took her father’s shot gun in hand, and listened to his instructions as he warned her about the dangers lurking in the trees. Sybil looked at her house for what she knew could have been the last time, and then she rode off into the storm.
The paths that she rode so frequently by day were completely alien to her in the darkness. Occasionally she veered off the road and would have to wait for the next bolt of lightening to correct herself. At one point during her ride, she was knocked from her horse by what she thought was a low hanging branch. A flash of lightening told her that her branch turned out to be two men. She fired her rifle but missed.
However, Star reared up and kicked one man, allowing Sybil the opportunity to mount the horse again. The second man grabbed Sybil’s leg as Star galloped away. They dragged him twenty feet before he let go, and Sybil resumed her mission.
She stopped at every home along the way, waking families, sending their men to her father. She rode to Carmel, and then on to Mahopac, through Cold Spring and then to Stormville before finally returning home to the cheers of over four hundred men. Her ride was forty miles, a ride that more than doubled the feat of Paul Revere.
The British force of two thousand vastly outnumbered the Patriots; however they had celebrated the sacking of Danbury by drinking all of the rum. They were no match for Ludington’s sober troops, and they quickly retreated to their boats. There were no more attempts to take the Highlands.
Sybil eventually married and had a son. After her husband’s death from yellow fever, Sybil obtained an innkeeper’s license. In this way, she was able to support her son, who went on to become an attorney. She would die on February 26, 1839 at the age of seventy-seven.
