During the Civil War, Griffing was struck by the plight of the recently freed slaves, especially those who were fleeing to Washington, D.C. Determined to help the freedpeople establish themselves, Griffing and her three daughters moved to Washington, D.C. in 1864, while her husband remained in Ohio. Why her husband remained behind is uncertain. Griffing became an agent for the National Freedmen's Relief Association of the District of Columbia, where she opened up two industrial schools for freedwomen in order to teach them marketable skills such as sewing. These schools were also designed to inculcate freedwomen with the values of the Northern white middle class. In Griffing's words, "the Industrial School furnishes an opportunity for instruction in social science, and domestic relations, as well as the higher forms of Industry, and a marked change is observable in personal tidiness, good manners, and in the control and government of young children - whom some of the mothers are obliged to bring with them to the Rooms." While in Washington, Griffing also used her political influence to lobby Congressmen for more direct aid for the formerly enslaved people of Washington. Through her lobbying of Radical Republican members of Congress, such as Benjamin Wade and Charles Sumner, Griffing became instrumental in establishing the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, more commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. In June 1865, as reward for her work in helping to create the Freedmen's Bureau, Commissioner Oliver Otis Howard appointed Griffing the assistant to the assistant commissioner for Washington, D.C.