Eager to thrash out all her new ideas with Elizabeth Stanton, she went to Seneca Falls for a few days of good talk, hoping to get Mrs. Stanton's help in organizing a woman's rights convention in 1862; but not even Mrs. Stanton could see the importance of such work at this time, believing that if women put all their efforts into winning the war, they would, without question, be rewarded with full citizenship. Susan was skeptical about this and disappointed that even the best women were so willing to be swept aside by the onrush of events.
Although opposed to war, Susan was far from advocating peace at any price, and was greatly concerned over the confusion in Washington which was vividly described in the discouraging letters Mrs. Stanton received from her husband, now Washington correspondent for the New York Tribune. Both she and Mrs. Stanton chafed at inaction. They had loyalty, intelligence, an understanding of national affairs, and executive ability to offer their country, but such qualities were not sought after among women.
In the spring of 1862, Susan helped Mrs. Stanton move her family to a new home in Brooklyn, and spent a few weeks with her there, getting the feel of the city in wartime. She then had the satisfaction of discovering that at least one woman was of use to her country, young eloquent Anna E. Dickinson.[140] Susan listened with pride and joy while Anna spoke to an enthusiastic audience at Cooper Union on the issues of the war. She took Anna to her heart at once. Anna's youth, her fervor, and her remarkable ability drew out all of Susan's motherly instincts of affection and protectiveness. They became devoted friends, and for the next few years carried on a voluminous correspondence.
Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur also helped restore Susan's confidence in women during these difficult days when, forced to mark time, she herself seemed at loose ends. Visiting the Academy of Design, she studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful step beyond all other artists."[141]
This confidence was soon dispelled, however, when a letter came from Lydia Mott containing the crushing news that the New York legislature had amended the newly won Married Woman's Property Law of 1860, while women's attention was focused on the war, and had taken away from mothers the right to equal guardianship of their children and from widows the control of the property left at the death of their husbands.
"We deserve to suffer for our confidence in 'man's sense of justice,'" she confessed to Lydia. " ... All of our reformers seem suddenly to have grown politic. All alike say, 'Have no conventions at this crisis!' Garrison, Phillips, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Stanton, etc. say, 'Wait until the war excitement abates....' I am sick at heart, but cannot carry the world against the wish and will of our best friends...."[142]
Unable to arouse even a glimmer of interest in woman's rights at this time, Susan started off on a lecture tour of her own, determined to make people understand that this war, so abhorrent to her, must be fought for the Negroes' freedom. "I cannot feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this," she explained to Lydia, adding, "It is so easy to feel your power for public work slipping away if you allow yourself to remain too long snuggled in the Abrahamic bosom of home. It requires great will power to resurrect one's soul.[143]
"I am speaking now extempore," she continued, "and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old antislavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war."
Feeling particularly close to Lydia at this time, she gratefully added, "What a stay, counsel, and comfort you have been to me, dear Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance meeting in that cold, smoky chapel in 1852. How you have compelled me to feel myself competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and distrust. I can never express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you."