On the night of April 26–27, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode 40 miles through Putnam County, New York, to muster her father's militia regiment after British forces burned Danbury, Connecticut.

She was sixteen years old. Her father, Colonel Henry Ludington, was needed to organize the 400-man regiment — he could not ride and command simultaneously. So Sybil went. She left at 9 p.m. and rode through rain, stopping at farmhouse after farmhouse, knocking on doors and shouting the call to arms. She arrived home at dawn. The militia mustered and marched to intercept the British forces retreating from Danbury.

Paul Revere's famous ride — 18 miles to warn two specific men — had happened two years earlier, in 1775. Revere was captured before completing his route and had to be released. His ride was immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1861. Ludington's ride was twice as far, through more difficult terrain, by a teenager, at night, in the rain, and it actually succeeded in its military objective.

Sybil Ludington was thanked in person by George Washington. She received a commemorative statue in 1961 in Carmel, New York, 184 years after the ride. A postage stamp was issued in 1975. That's approximately the full extent of her national recognition.