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SYBIL LUDINGTON
THE CALL TO ARMS From the Series "New Yorkers and the Revolution" by V. T. Dacquino From "Before Sybil's Ride":
 British
troops remained in Danbury all day destroying patriot
military stores. Those goods found in a Church
of England and goods found in the homes of royalists
were taken into the street to be burned and their
buildings spared, but houses owned by revolutionaries
used as storehouses for grain and meat were burned
to the ground. "It is said that the fat from
the burning meat ran ankle-deep in the street.
No less free ran the rum and wine, although not
in the same direction!" As night began, drunken
brawls and loud laughter became more frequent.
"The drunken men went up and down Main Street
in squads, singing army songs, shouting coarse
speeches, hugging each other, swearing, yelling,
and otherwise conducting themselves as becomes
an invader when he is very, very drunk."
During some of the day and most
of the night, Connecticut farmers sneaked back
into the enemy camp to kill an occasional soldier.
All around them revolutionary troops were being
mustered until finally, General Tyron gave an order
to move out. By midnight, three Danbury buildings
had been burned and many of the drunken revelers
were sleeping soundly. By about one o'clock Sunday
morning, Tyron ordered the gathering of soldiers
and the work of real destruction began. More buildings
were burned. Those owned by Tories were marked
with a cross, which protected them; houses without
crosses were torched. In the meantime, as the flames
filled a rainy night sky, dispatchers rode frantically
in all directions, and American troops rallied
to a belated defense of Danbury.
Before long, a rider roused the
Ludington household, and Sybil was galloping into
the night on her way to muster the Colonel's regiment.
W. F. Johnson told the story of her ride in 1907.
It is presumed that he based his information on
the records of Lewis S. Patrick, the Colonel's
great-grandson. According to Johnson: At eight
or nine o'clock that evening a jaded horseman reached
Colonel Ludington's home with the news. We may
imagine the fire that flashed through the veteran’s
veins at the report of the dastardly act of his
former chief. [General Tyron, the last of the
British governors of New York, had appointed Colonel
Ludington a captain in a colonial regiment before
the Colonel became a revolutionary.] But what
to do? His regiment was disbanded; its members
scattered at their homes, many at considerable
distances. [It was April, planting season,
and the farmers needed to tend their fields and
were granted leaves to get their farm work done.]
He must stay there to muster all who came in.
The messenger from Danbury could ride no more,
and there was no neighbor within call. In this
emergency he turned to his daughter Sybil, who,
a few days before, had passed her sixteenth birthday,
and bade her to take a horse, ride for the men,
and tell them to be at his house by daybreak.
One who even rides dangerous
roads, with lonely stretches. Imagination only
can picture what it was a quarter and a century
ago [now over to centuries ago] on a dark night,
with reckless bands of "Cowboys" and
"Skinners" abroad in the land. But she
performed her task, clinging to a man's saddle,
and guiding her steed with only a hempen halter,
as she rode through the night, bearing the news
of the sack of Danbury. There is no extravagance
in comparing her ride with that of Paul Revere
and its midnight message. Nor was her errand less
efficient than his was. By daybreak, thanks to
her daring, nearly the whole regiment was mustered
before her father's house at Fredricksburgh, and
an hour or two later was on the march for vengeance
on the raiders.
In this dramatic rendition of
Sybil's ride, Johnson is not correct when he refers
to Sybil as a "child." Sybil's world
wasn't the world we live in today. Sybil's mother,
Abigail, for example, was only fifteen when she
married Henry. Sybil was a very capable young woman
at sixteen and was engaged in the revolutionary
cause beyond just helping to protect her father
or doing domestic chores. The story of her conspiring
with Enoch Crosby, a notorious spy, attests to
this fact. Sybil knew the roads and where the men
lived, perhaps as result of riding with her father
along the narrow, dirt roads of Mahopac and Carmel.
They undoubtedly laid out the best route to be
used to muster the regiment in times of emergency.
It is doubtful that she had to rouse each of the
400 men individually. Key people in each village
heard her banging on their shutters, and in turn,
alerted the local contingent while she rode on
to complete her mission.
In the morning, Colonel Ludington's
regiment was gathered in his yard, preparing to
face the enemy. A postage stamp was issued in her
honor in 1975 as part of the national Bicentennial
series "Contributors to the Cause." Equestrian
statues depicting the young woman, brandishing
a branch to sound the alarm to muster, stand in
Putnam County and in Washington, DC. Her bold ride,
through forty miles of dense woods to summon her
father's regiment in 1777 by beating on the shudders
of his sleeping militia men, has been celebrated
in several illustrated books for children. She
has been the subject of numerous school reports,
plays, poems, and even an opera. Yet, most history
books have ignored Sybil Ludington.
That should change now with the
publication of the first serious biography of this
remarkable woman. There are half a dozen roadside
markers in Putnam County along the route of Sybil
Ludington's historic ride. One of these markers
caught the eye of Vincent Dacquino, who realized
he had been oblivious to an important event in
the American Revolution that occurred right in
his neighborhood. As he began sifting through every
available source for biographical material, he
discovered that few researchers agreed about the
basic facts of Sybil's life before and after the
ride. The story of Sybil's ride is generally agreed
on: In April 1777 British General William Tyron
invaded Connecticut from Long Island Sound. He
attacked with 2000 men. His purpose was to burn
Danbury, a depot for revolutionary stores, before
marching on Dutchess and Westchester Counties.
As Danbury burned, a messenger
was sent 17 miles to the home of Sybil's father,
Col. Henry Ludington, and he sent Sybil, his eldest
daughter, then sixteen years old, through dangerous
territory to summon his regiment to halt the British
advance. At that time the part of Dutchess County
that would later become Putnam County was between
the lines of the British and revolutionary armies
and infested with marauding bands of men who preyed
on both sides. There were loyalists and deserters
there as well. Sybil rode safely through the rainy
night, and by daybreak the Colonel and his men
were ready to take part in the successful rout
of the British. But what was her life as a young
woman; what became of her after her ride?
Dacquino found that no two sources
agreed on such basic things as her husband's name
and the number of her children. His search became
an obsession, the results of which have been published
in Sybil Ludington: The Call to Arms.
Dacquino traces the story of the Ludingtons from
the French and Indian War, in which the Colonel
served, to the Revolutionary War, where a price
was placed on his head by the British, (Sybil and
her sisters cleverly outwitted a gang of royalists
who attempted to abduct or assassinate their father.)
Henry Ludington owned a mill and property. Greatly
respected, he entertained many influential men,
including Washington.
Following the war, Sybil settled
in Catskill with her husband, Edmond Ogden and
their son, Henry. When Henry was 13, his father
died of yellow fever. A single parent, Sybil became
a successful tavern keeper, a profession then dominated
by men. She raised Henry to become and attorney
and community leader. When he married, Henry moved
his young family and his mother to Unadilla in
Otsego County. Like his grandfather, the Colonel,
he became an assemblyman. His eldest son, Edmund
Augustus, graduated from West Point and became
a military hero commemorated with a monument at
Fort Riley, KS.
104 pages, illustrated,
6 x 9, index, 2000
$15.00 paperback
A Purple Mountain Press original
To order:
Purple Mountain Press
1060 Main Street
PO Box 309
Fleischmanns, NY 12430-0309
845-254-4062
845-254-4476 (fax)
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