I read an interesting article eight years ago, about a Revolutionary War–era figure who did exist but—as sometimes happens—may not have been "all that." It was about Sibyl Ludington, a simple farm girl who, maybe, rode through rural New York to warn her neighbors about the coming redcoats.
I was reminded of it in my Facebook Memories this morning, and it struck a nerve. The article I read is gone now, but The Smithsonian magazine has an interesting article titled "Did the Midnight Ride of Sibyl Ludington Ever Happen?" that you can read here. It's about the legend.
But that first article had a paragraph just about the times that really made me think:
It was a period in American history when enemies could live next door or hide waiting and armed behind trees or near an outhouse. Real battles with loss of life occurred in taverns and in skirmishes in back yards between revolutionaries and their royalist neighbors and former friends. Family arguments began in one‑room schoolhouses and in April planting fields, where men tended the land, ready in an instant to respond to the call for battle in defense of their families.
Makes you appreciate your history, or it does me. It wasn't an easy life in this country in the 1770s. Let's not forget that. And yet it feels familiar too.
Why? Well, Trump exists. Last week at a rally he said, "There's a 100 percent chance that there will be a major terrorist attack in the United States. Or many attacks maybe." And on the one hand I don't think he's particularly intelligent, and I know he just makes things up. But on the other hand … I watched those "skirmishes" on January 6th. I've seen the remarks my MAGA brother has made. I've always had a weird feeling that someday I'll answer the doorbell and he—or someone else who doesn't approve of my politics—will be standing there with a gun pointed at me. One hopes not, of course, but the MAGAtry isn't the smartest group on the planet.
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