On the night of April 26, 1777, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode nearly 40 miles to warn some 400 militiamen that the British troops were coming. Much like the ride of Paul Revere, Ludington's message helped Patriot leaders prepare for battle. But Ludington was less than half Revere's age and rode more than twice as far to carry her warning.
The daughter of militia leader Colonel Henry Ludington, Sybil leaped into action on that fateful day in 1777 when a rider came to the Ludington house in Dutchess County, New York to warn them about a British attack on nearby Danbury, Connecticut. With Col. Ludington’s men on leave and the messenger too tired to continue, it was Sybil who rode through the night gathering almost the whole regiment by daybreak.
While Paul Revere’s ride was immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, Ludington’s tributes have been on a somewhat smaller scale. She was honored with a postal stamp in 1975. And, it is said that Ludington even received the appreciation of a grateful general, when George Washington, himself, came to her home to say “thank you.”
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