Underground organization

“ Tlie Weather Underground is not a legal organization for the simple reason that all of its leaders are on the FBI's most wanted list. But by 1974, the support network felt strong enough to organize a public above-ground apparatus. ”

“ The first reference to an organization devoted to the business [68] of aiding fugitive slaves occurs in a letter of George Washington, bearing date May 12, 1786. Washington speaks of a "society of Quakers in the city [Philadelphia] , formed for such purposes...." [170] We have no means of knowing how this body conducted its work, nor how long it continued to exist. It is sometimes stated that the formal organization of the Underground Road took place in 1838, but this is not an accurate statement. An organized society of the Underground Railroad was formed in Philadelphia about the year 1838. ”

“ The slight approach to organization manifest in some centres in the division of labor between station-keepers and special [71] agents or conductors was caused by the large number of fugitives arriving at these points, and the extreme caution necessary. When, at length, indignation was aroused in the minds of Northern abolitionists by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, September 18, 1850, the determination to resist this measure displayed itself in certain localities in the formation of vigilance committees. ”

“ Our lives and the lives of the men on top depended on our success in outwitting them. Silence below ground was absolutely essential, and every possible precaution to secure this was rigorously insisted on. When we approached, as we often did, in these clay galleries, to within three or four feet, before firing our mines, the men underground would work without boots, often without lights; blankets would be hung at different places along the galleries to drown noise; the floors of the tunnels covered with sand-bags ”

“ So we see three internal dynamics leading to preference divergence over tactics: (1) individuals recruited because of their skills in violence will tend to seek more action than leaders would prefer; (2) cognitive dynamics of underground organizations will lead operational units to see the world differently than their leaders; and (3) competition for prominence within the movement will lead factions to engage in politically unnecessary actions. All three result in agency problems. ”

“ As the work progressed we would often screw wooden rails to the floors of galleries, and then use small rubber-tired trolleys or cars to move our sand-bags from the face.
During the cold, damp winter of 1915-1916 we could always get warmed up by going below. In the chalk-mines in the succeeding summer it was also quite pleasant to go below and cool off. The men working underground were certainly lucky in this respect. Down below, the rumble of the shelling overhead could be very distinctly heard, and it interfered much with our effective listening to enemy mining operations. ”

“ Anyway, we have reason to believe in the existence of a large, well financed, well organized underground, with trained fighting men, big secret weapons dumps, and saboteurs ready for the word 'go'—to say nothing of a restless population and any number of covert sympathizers who'd follow if the initial uprising had good results. ”

“ Chances are your Investigator doesn't know anything more about freedom than you did before you came here. He only knows what it's supposed to be."
"But there are official personnel right here who aren't free—in the administration building, for instance."
"They're not allowed into the camp proper. They can't even see into it. And the underground service facilities are connected only to windowless buildings on the surface. But just to make sure, those people are all on life tenure here. They're 1-Daymen without much time to go, and they don't go back to the cities." ”

“ The enactment of personal liberty laws by various Northern states, with the purpose of impairing the efficiency of the Fugitive Slave laws, is characteristic of the period during which the underground system had its most rapid expansion, namely, the two decades from 1840 to 1860. These laws may be fairly considered as the palpable but guarded expression of an opposition that was free to go to the full length in its midnight operation of the Underground Road. ”

“ But it so happened that several hundred families belonging to the metal-working guilds, who knew the underground passages to the mines as foresters know the pathless wood, had taken refuge in the vast underground caverns with all the goods they could carry. Poor deluded creatures! they thought that this sudden coming of the winter blast, of the blinding snow and vast floating fields of ice, was but a freak of nature, and that in a few months the old warmth and the old sunshine would come back again. ”

“ Can it be thought strange that the disappearance week by week and month by month of valuable slaves over the unknown routes of the underground system should have produced wrath, suspicion and hostility in the minds of people who could justly claim to have a constitutional guarantee, the laws of Congress, and the decisions of the highest courts on their side? ”

“ The Underground Railroad, it will be seen, has done much the greatest work in behalf of human liberty.
The conductors on this route were some of the noblest, self sacrificing men the world ever saw. No civil penalties dismayed them. They boldly proclaimed by deeds of moral heroism and self-sacrifice their faith in the higher law, before which human statutes were impotent when human liberty was at stake. ”

“ The underground and guerrillas are politico-military entities that may conduct both political and military acts, and which represent the ends of a spectrum between clandestine and overt resistance. The auxiliary represents a clandestine support structure for both the underground and guerrillas. ”

“ The deviating secret routes of the great system were developed in response to the need of passengers that were in constant danger of pursuit. It is this fact of the pursuit of runaways into various communities where they were supposed to be in hiding, together with the harsh scenes enacted by hireling slave-catchers in raiding some station of the Underground Road, that gave to the operations of the Road that publicity necessary to make converts to the anti-slavery cause. ”

“ In general the participants in underground operations were quiet persons, little known outside of the localities where they lived, and were therefore members of a class that historians find it exceedingly difficult to bring within their field of view. ”

“ Some, not content with personal freedom and happiness, went secretly back to their old homes, and brought away their wives and children at much peril and cost. The rumor widened; the fugitives so increased, that a secret pathway, since called the Underground Railroad, was soon formed, which ran by the huts of the blacks in the slave states, and the houses of good Samaritans in the free states.... ”

“ He was well-known to the colored people far and near, and was especially sought with regard to business pertaining to the Underground Rail Road, as a friend who would never fail to assist as far as possible in every time of need. Through his agency many found their way to freedom, both by land and water.
The slave-holders regarding him with much suspicion, watched him closely, and were in the habit of "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" very fiercely at times. ”

“ When its time was up the mines would vomit forth thousands of men, who, penned all day in the dark, stifling heat of the underground city, would pour into the garish brilliancy of the overground one for the diversions of the night. Here, in the gusto of their liberation, they would range till daylight, restless eddies of life, passing up one street and down the other, never silent, never still, pressing vaguely on through the noise and glare, with the encircling blackness hanging round their little piece of the animated, outside world, like an inky curtain. ”

“ Among the underground workers there were two whose principal object in life seems to have been to assist fugitive slaves. These two organizers of underground travel were Levi Coffin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, Delaware, both lifelong members of the Society of Friends, both capable business men, both able to number the unfortunates they had succored in terms of thousands. ”

“ The trader, the slave-pen, the auction-block, the coffle gang, the rice swamp, the cotton plantation, bloodhounds, and cruel overseers loomed up before him, as they had never done before. Without stopping to consider the danger, he immediately made up his mind that he would make a struggle, cost what it might. He knew of no other way of escape than the Underground Rail Road. He was shrewd enough to find an agent, who gave him private instructions, and to whom he indicated a desire to travel North on said road. ”

“ Many of them were from men and women whose names will be found in the pages of American history as long as the conflict over slavery holds a place therein. Long afterward, when many years of peace had enabled all the people of the land to look back with calm philosophy upon those heated years of contention, and the impartial muse of history had given to the Underground Railroad a high place among the causes which brought on the Civil War and abolished servitude, Rhoda Ware held these letters among her most prized mementos of those stirring days of which she was a part. ”

“ During her stay in York she had frequent opportunities of seeing passengers on the Underground Rail Road. In one of her letters she thus alluded to a traveler: "I saw a passenger per the Underground Rail Road yesterday; did he arrive safely? Notwithstanding that abomination of the nineteenth century—the Fugitive Slave Law—men still determine to be free. Notwithstanding all the darkness in which they keep the slaves, it seems that somehow light is dawning upon their minds.... These poor fugitives are a property that can walk. ”

“ There are a few volumes that supply us with numerous illustrations of the Underground Railroad in operation. These books are not general treatises on the underground system, but give us an insight into the clandestine work of several limited localities; they are important because they exhibit the methods and devices of operators, show the sacrifices made by them in behalf of the midnight seekers after liberty, and supplement with valuable matter the unpublished reminiscences. ”

“ If in any way we have erred in the task of furnishing facts and important information touching the Underground Rail Road, it has not been in overstating the sufferings, trials, perils, and marvellous escapes of those described, but on the contrary. In many instances after hearing the most painful narratives we had neither time nor inclination to write them out, except in the briefest manner, simply sufficient to identify parties, which we did, not dreaming that the dark cloud of Slavery was so soon to give way to the bright sunlight of Freedom. ”

“ They never failed presently to meet with rich finds of food reserves, extensive enough to close the mouths of the alarmists, whereby there resulted on each occasion, according to the law of Malthus, a sudden increase in the population, coupled with the excavation of new underground cities, more flourishing than their older sisters. ”

“ Each structure, or group of structures, thus elevated, was a fortress. They prove the insecurity in which the people lived; for the labor involved in constructing these platform elevations, in part, at least, artificial, would never have been undertaken without a powerful motive. One of the chief blessings of civilization is the security which a higher organization of society gives to the people, under the protection of which they are able as cultivators to occupy broad areas of land. ”

“ The struggles of the pioneer fathers are preserved, produced and re-produced, and cherished with undying interest by all Americans, and the day will not arrive while the Republic exists, when these histories will not be found in every library.
While the grand little army of abolitionists was waging its untiring warfare for freedom, prior to the rebellion, no agency encouraged them like the heroism of fugitives. The pulse of the four millions of slaves and their desire for freedom, were better felt through "The Underground Railroad," than through any other channel. ”

“ It must be always borne in mind that mining is not an independent service, but is employed in connection with the other arms of the service.
Underground activity, either offensive or defensive, is first observed from those points in our lines nearest the enemy. All enemy trenches facing salients of our lines will be the object of particular attention and closest daily observation. This observation of the first-line and support-line trenches should disclose the presence of enemy underground works and their approximate location. ”

“ If, therefore, we can offer them an asylum and profitable employment on the estate, we shall open up a new Underground Rail Road, or rather enable the slaves to escape from Cuba by getting into a boat, and in one night finding their way to freedom. ”

“ Underground surveys are calmly and efficiently made, huge mine charges deliberately and quietly placed, electrical connections carefully tested, and at the precise moment fired with terrific detonation and damage. ”