Larry Mendte Curtis Sliwa America 250th June 30

Curtis shares the story of the Battle of Ridgefield and how an alert similar to Paul Revere gathered colonial troops to take on British troops that burned down Danbury, Connecticut.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Curtis and Larry celebrate two fifty Stories that Made America
on sevent ten.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Woe. I'll tell you this much, and it ain't gonna
be like Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. Right, We're gonna
be drunk two drunk day guys welcoming the birthday of
America on July third. I mean, I couldn't know how
revolting that is. That's for New Years. But we've been

(00:30):
bringing you back in time in on time machine to
great events. It took place by our patriots when when
everything odds wise was against them, and yet they won
this victory. They guaranteed us the democracy and freedom that
so many people just take advantage of and don't even
remember what it was to get there Initially. Natalie, remember

(00:54):
we had a caller when we first was soliciting calls
on this from Carmel, New York, who said, okay, I
want to talk about Paul Revere. List of my children
and you shall hear of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
We all learned that in school. I remember it was
drilled into us. In fact, you had to recite it
over and over and over again. But I will tell

(01:17):
you this, even though there was a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's
poem in eighteen sixty one that rightfully recognized that seventeen
seventy five Paul Revere ride that alerted the minutemen of
Massachusetts about the approach of the British troops and Lexington
and Concord two years later, April twenty six, nineteen seventy seven,

(01:41):
it was a night a wounded messenger had reached the
home of Colonel Henry Luddington. He was a veteran of
the French Indian War. He was the commander of the
militia in Dutchess County, New York, four hundred men strong.
The British had entered nearby in Danbury, Connecticut, not that

(02:01):
far away. They found American munitions unguarded. They looted and
burnt down Danbury right to the ground. Colonel Ludington's oldest
daughterom he had twelve kids, jumped on her horse in
the driving rain and went forty miles, twice the distance

(02:25):
of poorl Revere. And she had a stick in her hand,
so as she would approach the house on her trusty steed,
she would bang on the door with the stick until
somebody answered, and then she would say, Hey, the British,
they're burning down Danbury. We must assemble, We must assemble.

(02:47):
And she fought off robbers along the way who had
no loyalties to either the Continental Army or the British,
who ad just there to take advantage. And she had
a loaded musket, and when they came towards a bad
she fired and they ran. She rallied the four hundred men.
She finished her job of going door to door in

(03:09):
the early morning of the next day, and as a result,
the Brits were confronted in the Battle of Richfield. They
were run off. They couldn't save Danbury the four hundred,
but they drove the British troops back into their boats
in Long Island Sound, so it was a victory of sorts.

(03:30):
So that encompasses Dutchess County. She rode through Putnam County.
We really didn't see much in my various reports of
New Yorkers getting involved because they were basically loyalists. They
did not join the rebels. But then along came a woman,
a woman who tried to debunk his story, just like

(03:53):
they tried to depunk the story of Betsy Ross. In
the creation of our American flag. But the daughters of
the American Revolution came to the honor of the family,
and most importantly, this female version of Paul Revere Sybil Luddington,
as that woman had left us a message. There is
a sculpture that was built in nineteen sixty one erected

(04:16):
at Lake Glenida, which is writing Carmel. The only problem
is they have her riding side saddle with the stick.
I don't think she could have wrote side saddle through
the driving way in the wind while fighting off bandits
along the way with a musket. The NRIA gives out

(04:38):
an award every year in her honor, and during the
bi centennial, which obviously was celebrated a lot more than
our two hundred and fiftieth birthday postage stamp was issued
in her honor in nineteen seventy six. So imagine we
have fulfilled the promise to talk about the female poll review.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
This is exactly why I love your idea of doing this.
I had no idea. I didn't know about her at all,
and so I think I am and you are. And
most importantly, the listeners are learning so much about the
birth of America, which by the way, this is the
appropriate time for that. Why nobody else is doing it

(05:24):
is beyond me.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Not because the sense of patriotism is not what it
should be, but we're going to keep that spirit alive.