On April 25, 1777, a force of 2,000 redcoats landed at Westport, Connecticut and marched on Danbury. There they burned homes and destroyed rebel supplies. The raid was similar to the one on Concord, Massachusetts a year earlier. Col. Henry Ludington was in command of the militia forces in the area. A messenger arrived at his home that night with word of the raid and a plea that he call out the militia to prevent further depredations. He realized he would have to stay home to organize his men as they gathered. He needed to get the word to them, so he asked his sixteen-year old daughter Sybil to play the role of Paul Revere. Sybil took the family horse and rode out that night to warn the patriots and to get word to her father’s soldiers. She risked her life riding on dark roads frequented by highwaymen and other outlaws. She would stop at houses saying: “There’s trouble. Bring your gun. The British are burning Danbury. The colonel wants you right away.” By the next afternoon, almost all her father’s regiment had assembled. It turned the British back at Ridgefield, Connecticut. But Sybil got no recognition. Longfellow did not write a poem about her.
Sybil’s story can be instructive to teachers about the pitfalls of using anecdotes without qualifications. God knows I have told great stories that I later found out were apocryphal. I wish I could have gone back to those moments. I still would have told the story, but I would have added that some historians question the veracity of the story. Recently, I posted the Sybil Ludington story on some American History groups in Facebook. Many people loved the story and shared it, but others pointed out that it might not be true. This surprised me because the only source I used was an “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader” and there was no mention of problems. Before you sneer at that source, the Ludington story has appeared in many books, including text books. So, here’s the problem. There was a Sybil Ludington, but that may be the only thing that is true. The story first appeared in print in a book about New York City by local historian Martha Lamb. It was published in 1880 and the story tapped into the patriotic wave that started with the centennial celebration. (The Betsy Ross story, which is similar in its lack of contemporary accounts, coincided with this period also.) But the story did not commonly appear in classrooms until the 1950s when American History was looking for patriotic heroes to contrast with communists. In the 1960s and 1970s, Sybil became a feminist icon. In the 1990s, questions arose and the Daughters of the American Revolution deemed the story lacking in evidence. Ouch! It still has it supporters. Vincent Dacquino has written four books on her and has found evidence to back them up. So, keep telling the story, but add that it may not have happened.
– Bathroom I 340-341
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Ludington
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/did-midnight-ride-sibyl-ludington-ever-happen-180979557/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/was-there-really-teenage-female-paul-revere-180962993/
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