cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> up next on american history tv, we trace the american views of aging to the last 50 years including a cultural shift in the 1950's away from revering the elderly and embracing youth culture. the author of aging in america posted this program. it is about 40 minutes. >> published in february of this year by the university of pennsylvania. aging in america chronicles the history of aging in the u.s. from been revered in early america to being prevented, a disease that science will one day cure. thelawrence samuel is

founder of boomers 3.0 a consultancy firm that advocates for a more positive outlook on aging. it assists organizations to create meaningful relationships with baby boomers in our youth that test culture. phd in american studies from the university of minnesota. as well mba from the university of georgia, he is also a smithsonian institute fellow. he has written for the new york times, the atlantic, the washington post, and has made recent appearances on npr and cbc radio. please give a big warm welcome, we welcome him back here. [applause] >>, thank you for coming,

everybody. first things first, i want to ask, how many people think about aging? they think that they are getting older? [laughter] it is just not on your radar. you do not think about it? you don't think about it much? ok. for those people who do think about it, do you think about it in a positive way? how many people think about it as a positive experience? how many people think it is a negative experience? wow. we are going to talk about all of that tonight. tonight's talk, i am going to follow the outline of the book. which has a introduction, six chapters, beginning in the mid-60's -- 1960's and then we are going to wrap up with a conclusion at the end. ok, first off, i wanted to write

the book and why i think it is worth reading. i think most obviously that aging is central to life in america today. there is a lot of interest that baby boomers like myself we are hitting our 60's and 70's. the back story to that, boomers are going to crash the economy. there is just not enough money in social security to fund them as they get older. there is just not enough doctors and nurses out there and say 20 years or so. if you think about aging it is a subject that resonates on a lot of different levels. everybody is aging all the time. it is a universal experience. one of the very few. i think it helps shape who we are and it reflects who we are as a personal level.

and how we are viewed by others. if you think about the experiences that are common to everyone. we born -- we are born, we age and then we die. this is a happy story. back to it being central to where we are today. there are key moments in history, or country and the world in fact. for americans 65 years old for the next 20 years. 85-year-olds are the fastest-growing demographic group today. if there is one main argument in the book it is basically that the idea and the reality of aging contradict our social values. it sort of juxtaposes this, they are not in sync. older people are largely disenfranchised and marginalized from the rest of the population. we will talk about that as well. i think the main culprit there is our youth-oriented culture

that is responsible for what i see is widespread ageism. how do i see it? i see it is blatant illegal discrimination. if you have a resume and a college degree from the 1970's and now almost the 1980's it is trash. you have no chance of getting a job. almost. from 55 until 80 demographically on a average level it is generally you'd as a poster for your real life. then you have this footnote where you are kind of in decline. that is the story of aging as well. i think people and that a group -- in that age group are seen as less attractive versions of themselves. i think you also see it in no good terms. we do not know what to call people. elderly has been around, that is horrible. seniors is becoming politically

incorrect and going away. older adult amateur adult, i do not know what that means. there are new terms that people are moving around. they are silly and ridiculous. seasoned citizens, those are just terrible. let's face it. i would think the term could be baby boomers. i think that will stay. if you think about it there is why we have this problem of aging. there is very few stories we have to learn this, we do not learn this in school. i think there are very few positive that is to getting older and popular culture. except for ways to delay it. the story practically with young people is that getting older is a negative experience. even people in this room think it is a negative experience.

if you think about it it is very entirely natural. we all do it. study after study shows that it actually brings a sense of contentment and well-being and satisfaction that you did not have when you were younger. i look at it as a positive extreme. my body will say otherwise. your psyche will you something different. baby boomers are much to blame for this. a lot of us are clinging onto what is remaining of our youth rather than embracing aging which is what i think we should do. a lot of us are pursuing antiaging. with products and therapies, we will talk a lot about that as well. this is a historic opportunity to really change the narrative and change the story of aging and getting older in america. boomers are not really doing that. they are kind of clinging to their youth.

instead of trying to change the story, i think that can be really their lasting legacy. going back a couple of hundred years in the introduction, it was not always like this. older people were venerated and they were look to as elders. partly because it was rare, people do not live that long. if you did live to 70 in the 1700s you are seen as ordained to live longer. after the civil war older american started to living longer and it is not that unusual. in the late 19th century and the early 20th century -- how is that? i will get closer. it is the industrial age, it is the machine age, things like vitality become valued.

old age homes and nursing homes become very popular. we have people becoming segregated from the rest of the population which is not a good thing at all. social security is a blessing in some ways, fdr has that new deal. it is a bargain, now the older people excepting those entitlements are looked down from society. there are social problems because they cost money. there is a big trade-off when that happens. after world war ii there are a amazing strides in science and technology. people are living longer. scientists are trying to find

out how they can combat this and cure this. it is look at as a disease. through the 50's, older people are seen as frail and mentally incompetent. the health care and beauty industries recognize the problem of aging, there is not a problem it is entirely natural, they realize this could be a hughes -- huge business opportunity. so this is where i begin, that was the back story. these are the counterculture years in the 1960's. the youth culture is down in society as never before with baby boomers. people who are older people who were born around the turn of the century, the greatest generation feel like outsiders. in time i used this. you are old in a country of the young. they are not really time to older americans in these counterculture years. the generation gap emerges as a big social problem. you see it in popular culture, there is a saying. do not trust anyone over 30. in the who's song they say they

hope they die before they get old. in 1965 we have the lbj society which has medicare and medicaid. just like 30 years ago with the new deal there is a trade-off with this area they are wonderful, at the same time for people it makes them financially dependent on government will dependent on government entitlements. older people now are seen as a minority group. they are separate from the earth's population, there are the gray panthers which is kind of riffing on the black panther movement. it is the beginning of the civil rights movement for older people which exist to this day. you also see the field of gerontology grow. that is the study of age and the

problems associate with aging. even back then there are studies showing that the negative believes about older people are just as true. -- just not true. older people can and do learn new things. ok, we are going to get into the 1980's. aging becomes a looming crisis as boomers hit middle-age. this is the first time people recognize this demographic iceberg of getting old one day and the implications of that. there are apocalyptic scenarios with social security and medicare. people are predicting that there is going to be a generational war over resources went boomers start retiring. who is going to pay for all of these people? even back then they started looking at antiaging to stay young. with ways to allegedly stall the process of aging.

in 1984 there was the de-aging of america. you see widespread discrimination against seniors. the aging of the population really has no effect on the perception of older people. people are getting older but the narrative of the story is changing, in fact it is getting worse and it is one of those puzzles to make, wire people not friendly if there are so many getting old? it is a puzzle. the 1980's are a great time for multiculturalism and diversity. older people are not really part of this widespread movement. like women, people of color, coach ebt and disabled. -- lgbt, disabled. they are getting rights other people are not. ageism is ironic, when you think about the number one american it is the senior citizen. ronald reagan when he was

elected was in his 70's. he is a prime example of productive aging. he is a great example, their art photo opportunities of him chopping wood and riding horses. the idea that aging does not make sense. this is a time when forced retirement goes away and against to fade. you are seeing in the 1980's the concept of oldness being pushed back. we have to push back the boomers aren't old so we have o move back the numbers. now people start thinking as your perceived age instead of your biological age.

it doesn't matter what your actual age is. it's how you're perceived and how you perceive yourself and what i think are very annoying phrases like 50 is the new 40. we just keep coming up with, you know, 60 is the new 50. 90 is the new 80. they're silly to me. i don't like them. ok. we'll get into the 90's. mid lifing of boomers becomes central to our conversation. this looming iceberg out there that is going to crash our system one day. now the eternally youthful, you know, generation, baby boomers, you can't hide it anymore even if you are using antiaging products. you are getting older. and the term is aging of aquarius. i like that and used that as the title. you really see this pursuit for the fountain of youth kick in in the 1990's again because baby boomers are now hitting what, their 40's. researchers, marketers, entrepreneurs recognize this as a huge opportunity. you're also seeing alzheimer

research kick in as the epidemic really begins around this, 4 million americans have it in 1990. 5.5 million have it today, by the way. despite all this, people just don't understand what it is actually like to be older. studies show the third act of life is usually an opportunity to grow, focus on one's self, and let go of insecurities. that's what's coming out in the research. it's important to have a positive outlook. that is huge. and sort of under valued. that one really is only as old as one feels. you have a lot of power to shape how old you are in some respects. so here we have this demographic iceberg continuing to escalate. you're seeing for the first time in the conservative community a back lash against taxpayer fund entitlements. peter g. peterson, the millionaire, billionaire, i think billionaire, is one of those. he is a loud voice for this and e actually calls older age a

subsidized leisure. that kind of says it all. mid career boomers, both men and women, are fighting back the physical signs of aging. things like dhea, nutritional supplements, and super foods become big business. cosmetic surgery is now routine. it's not sort of this exotic procedure anymore. again, for both men and women. ok. we're into the 21st century. boomers are in their 50's. not much has changed. youth still remains the primary currency. social currency of the day. they don't intend to look or act like their parents' version of 50. and the weekly standard, i like this line, calls america a nation of perpetual adolescents. i use that as the title. scientists still look at aging as a treatable disease. his is something we can fix. the anti-aging therapies of the

day are vitemines, enzymes, b-12 shots. omega iii oils, nutrition, and supplements. the big one is h.d.h. which is still quite popular today, really the entree'. do i of theas work? no. there is no research that suggests any of it does work. the only thing that does work is eating much less. it works in mice and seems to work in adults. if you consume very few calories a day you're likely to live longer. that is the one thing that looks like it works. you're seeing in pop culture the celebrity dermatologists opening a shop on the upper east side, antiwrinkle creams, just the creams are a billion dollar business. those are just the creams. nd of course it's botox mania. science now is interested in putting the fountain of youth in one pill because all of these are kind of scattered and sometimes hard to take and no

one really knows but if they could put the fountain of youth in one easy pill you could take that is sort of the killer app if you will. at the same time not coincidentally you have the completion of the human genome project so they're trying to tie their research now to the decoding of the human gene. also, i keep mentioning this looming crisis. they're figuring that not only will it be good just in terms of business, but this will push on if we can really make boomers live 20 years longer. maybe we can make the money back and be able to fund boomers when they do retire. it looks as a way to like push the aging crisis back a decade or two. what are boomers doing? well, not anything people predicted. they are not retiring en masse. they're not interested in that. they're working, volunteering, they plan predominantly age in

place, meaning stay put in their current house or a house nearby in their neighborhood. they're not flocking to the retirement communities their parents did if they can afford it and maybe they're inspired by the geriatric rock business people like bob dylan who is older than a boomer. eric clapton, jagger, these people are getting it done. they're making more money in their 60's and 70's a lot of them than they were in their prime if you will. 69, still getting it done. it was wonderful. all right. we're up to the latter years, 2005 to 2009. this is where many local communities start thinking oh, my gosh what's going to happen here? because now the older residents are out numbering the children, especially in the suburbs. they were built for families and raising children. well, now those children are becoming older adults. what shall we do?

should we continue to fund schools and youth services or should we switch our allocation more toward older people? so this is called the silver tsunami. another milestone, january 1, 2006, the oldest boomers turned 60. this has always been the historical entry point into seniority. but it is clear that this generation is really different than any other group of seniors before in history. we had productive aging or successful aging. now the concepts of creative aging and successful aging emerge in the media. it used to be, you know, especially in the post war years, known that people would have a mid life crisis. you know, when they hit their 50's or 60's. this positive look at aging kind of displaces that. now boomers are saying, well, i want to do something different and challenging in my third act rather than sit around thinking about when i'm going to die or how i failed in my personal

professional life which is basically a mid life crisis, so that kind of goes away which is interesting. mid lifers are rebooting, beginning entirely different careers, encore careers, second careers. going back to school. starting new relationships. or have children, which is what i did. i had a child at 55. my first child. o that's how i rebooted. a very important book comes out at this time, andrew wild's best seller "healthy aging" and he just gets it right. he just nails it back then. he argues we should celebrate versus dread older age and science, the goal in science should be to postpone the development of age-related diseases rather than the ridiculous concept of antiaging which is to me antihuman. if you're antiaging you're antihuman because aging is human. marketers finally catch up. -- no idea ooking what he's doing.

ok. very few marketers rhealy targeted older consumers up until 10 years ago. then they started noticing, hey, a lot of people out there with a lot of money. maybe we should look at them. advertising in the art magazine goes up. homes and appliances start being redesigned with older people in mind. despite this youth is still the pry -- boomers are still the priority. to this day they account for 70% of every dollar spent but you wouldn't know that if you look out in consumer culture. millennials are not good consumers. a lot of them don't want houses. they don't want cars. they don't want to be in debt. they all have college debt. they can't afford to buy anything. but marketers don't really get that yet. ok. so where are we today? dwg back a few years. going back a few years. another historic milestone.

oldest baby boomers reached the traditional retirement age of 65. are they flooding to florida, scottsdale, wherever en masse? no they're not. we see new urgency to battle the nentions of aging in science and "the wall street journal" uses the term boomers are raging against aging. i like that. --. to 1964 [inaudible] >> the first wave, 1946. today they're please 70. 71. yes. first wave. we also have the all-time high number of grandparents who are actually most -- most grandparents are working full-time, which is kind of remarkable in itself. there's going to be every --

one of every three adults in just a few years is going to be a grandparent in america. as the grandparent economy emerges there is tons of money to be made, a whole economy out there because grandparents of course will spend tons of money in ways parents won't on their grandchildren. so this becomes a center of attention for marketers. where are we at now? boomers are redefining old age. we're not retiring early as lots of people predicted. we're not down sizing. we are still interested in buying stuff. there is very little interest in senior friendly homes at this point or moving to the retirement community in seinfeld. not many of us are doing that. and finally, scientists are indeed switching their focus just as andrew wild proposed that we do. the concept now is to improve one's health span rather than extend your life span. that means how can we be free

of chronic diseases as long as possible, which eventually are likely to come to us, more than one usually, rather than add years to your back end of life? to your old years, which are ot usually good? interestingly, tech companies are jumping in in a big way. they have billions and billions of dollars and some of the c.e.o.'s are getting older and they want the fountain of youth to be discovered in their lifetime so they can live longer. this is how it's being driven. you have google opening a company, buying a company and renaming it kale coin 2013. a famous scientist made a ton of money and he found human longevity in 2014, he funds human longevity so billions of dollars are being spent to try to solve the riddle of aging. people still don't understand why the human body insists to age because it contradicts what

a body should do which is survive. it is directly contradictory. why would a body want to kill itself? they have some ideas. it's always something else. they still don't quite understand why we get older. to wrap up i think there is some progress in how we perceive aging but the subject remains largely taboo. a little like death. you just don't bring it up a lot. lots of fear and dread surrounding it despite tons of research showing that getting older is usually enjoyable. sometimes the best part of life a lot of older people will tell you. again, to this notion, why is there such ageism out there if there are more older people on the planet than ever before? it is just strange to me. youth is still ruling the day. america in particular is a very youth obsessed society. goes back a hundred years or so.

and boomers' denial of aging isn't helping matters. rather than celebrating aging a lot of them are dreading it. the whole concept of antiaging consumers still a billions and billions business, it reinforces the idea. look at the term antiaging literally is negative toward aging, which is not a good way if you're, to think, if you're going to start celebrating aging. again, no therapy or technique works except eating much, much less. despite all this, i found a happy ending to the story. i'm seeing boomers reintegrating and assimilating older people back into the main stream. we're not segregated like we were. i think that is a great thing. our third act of life is seen hess and less as not just this footnote to who you were when you were active and vibrant. i predict even more than the counterculture that this is going to be boomers' final hurrah. that they brought back older

people back into the main stream rather than have them sort of segregated as they've been for the last 50 years or so. i think that is going to be our enduring legacy. that's where i want to end up, on a happy note. ok? who has questions? [applause] please come to the mic. this is being taped. >> please ask your question. no comments. >> it's been my experience, i get a lot of mail from agencies that request donations and term limitations and the news that these people are getting old not that they're incompetent. i get a lot of information about burn out which is happening among very young

people and my belief is part of process, which means more people will get older and useless quicker. the whole series of denying periences of people thus validating the presence of your children or your views going for the last 70 years i've seen every 10, 15 years in this culture people say oh, we're all getting old. let's make room for the next people to come along and deny anything that may come, happen during this period of time because the new views will come in as validated. >> yes, yes. i just sense a lot of hostility actually toward older people including boomers. people just want us to go away am like you had your time. now it's time for us. go away. we're not quite ready to do that. yes?

i think we have to use the microphone. >> i don't think reagan is a good example since he had alzheimer's while president. >> yeah. he got it during the second term. when he was elected he was 70 years old and didn't have alzheimer's. >> anyway, my question is i don't understand why you say social security is anne entitlement and costs money. half the money put in is from the employer's check and the other half from the employee and, you know, it's our pension. it's not an entitlement. there is an easy solution which is just raising the cap. >> right. my point is there is a lot of back lash against it. people want it to go away. yeah. >> i'll turn 66 years old tomorrow. >> happy birthday. >> i feel better physically and psychologically than i did when i was 26. >> thank you. >> so in terms of the baby boomers' contribution to society would you say that in

terms of aging their emphasis on the importance of diet and exercise, which a lot of people my age are getting into even if they weren't when they were younger, would you say this is something that is helping the elderly, older people stay integrated within american society and even younger people in that respect? would you say that's so? >> yeah. i would say so. have to be just active and keep going whether physically, mentally, and that is going to help your body and your mind. the sports are shifting because you can't do the high impact stuff like you used to. there is a sport called pickle ball. that's all the rage right now. do you know about pickle ball? >> i don't know what pickle ball is but i was kicking a soccer ball around this afternoon. >> pickle ball is the hottest sport right now with older people. it's on a tennis court but only

one-third of the court and you use a paddle. google it. it's all the rage right now. it helps you stay fit but it is easier to do than tennis or some other sports. thank you. feeling in the university lab where they're -- years d.n.a. of ago there was a movie, the stunt man in his late 80's and now gene is 82 and still flying through windows and stuff like hat. to take that d.n.a. and analyze it and find out what is it these guys have? also i want to comment, one more thing we could do when you when they vie like

made movies of the x men, he doesn't have gray at the temples like in the comic books when it started and there hould be a mass protest. you're lying about age. >> there you go. i don't know. i'm sure they're working with d.n.a. and decades ago they would go to those areas of the world where people were routinely living to 100 years old like astonia. there are pockets in russia and other places and they tried to figure out what's going on and they did research on that. i don't think it's really transplantable. i don't think you can sort of create that. you know, that comes out over not centuries but millenia that your d.n.a. sort of gets that way. japanese, too, live longer. they're wondering, well, is it just low stress or that older people are vein rated in those societies which they tend to be like in japan?

i'm more leaning toward genetics. that is just thousands of years of making that happen. i don't think you can put it in a pill and would be scary if they tried. >> there are a couple really great points and as good as your book and outline were it didn't seem like you touched on it. the first is we spend 25 years preparing for our careers and our lives. we spend little or no time preparing for the bottom third of our life. the other thing is women beat us whole heartedly in out living us and there is a reason. they are so much better at finding purpose in life through volunteering. they beat us handily in that. you probably have better statistics than i have. number two even though male friendship is always celebrated in film and literature and everything, when it comes down to it, men are not necessarily after the age of 60 making more contacts, going out to lunch like ladies are, family, reaching out to family, and the love of women. so if you're wondering why

they're making it to 83 and you're knocking off at 78 those are some of the things we have to learn from. does your book talk about that? >> i talk about, yeah, the whole daddy and man blog scene where men have hooked up online. huge community where there's hundreds and hundreds of men talking about their lives. which, you know, it's very pedestrian stuff but they share these stories. they have conventions and conferences. there's like a little mini men's movement going on right now for men to connect because of the exact reason you're saying, that they felt disconnected and so now they're finding each other online. it's all online but then they meet in person. >> men are so achievement oriented with money. you can find purpose in life in going to hospitals and making friends. i gave out books, a new way of thinking of manhood, too. do you talk about that? >> do i talk about manhood? i talk about manhood in another

book, my fatherhood book. >> oh, ok. i tried not to talk about gender, race, ethnicity, because i wanted this book of all my books to be about conflict -- this is one of the very few chances i can talk about it as a universal experience. i didn't want to break it down how do men think about aging, how do women think about it, how do black people think about it? how do white people think about it? it's too much. i just wanted to focus on the central thread which is that we all get older. >> ok. >> yes. >> i feel kind of positively and negatively about aging. you know, the first respect it's wonderful to draw upon all of this experience and to see how values and attitudes and even cultures have changed. it's really an enriching thing. >> yes. >> the aging process. on the other hand, it's tougher to get around on the tennis courts. i was kind of stunned to hear

you say that, you know, boomers are spending all this money and, what, millennials and other younger groups are not and yet advertisers seem to be marketing focused on the tv and radio, let's get the 25 to 40-year-olds. >> right. >> how do you square that? >> do you know who those mployees are that work at ad agencies and companies? are they boomers? not too many left. they're millennials. they see the world through their eyes which makes perfect sense. they're not going to go target their dad or grandparent. a lot of it has to do with the actual people working at these companies and their perspective on life. older people are not really part of that. so i'm trying to fix that at a business level to try to change that perception. >> so you say they're not getting it right then.

>> they're not getting it right, no. they think that people, that boomers have everything and they're brand loyal and they're not going to change a brand because they're 70 or 60 years old which is entirely untrue. we are just as open to new marketing and brand experiences as a 20-year-old. yes? >> my question is do you attribute people having a negative impact on aging because of the proliferation of drug company ads on tv at all of these different problems that you can have, all of the health -- no one ever knew about? >> right. yes. no, he think that is a huge problem. i think that's a huge problem. that's all you see for older people, shows for, that a lot of older people watch and it leaves you with the impression that seek a & mness is the only thing older people -- seek a & mness is the only thing older people have which is not true. i agree totally. ood point.

my question is about the group you said was aging the most. now they talk about the young old and the old old. it would seem to me that the old old has different problems than the young old really. >> yes. >> most of them are still able physically to do many more things. >> yes. a good point. >> i think the old old have many other problems. could you go into that? there is a big difference. >> yes, some authors actually look at it that way. have segmented age. don't like to do that either. did anybody see carl reiner's hbo documentary? >> i saw a trailer.

>> it's fabulous. he found 90 plus-year-olds like himself and went and spoke to them. mel brooks and all those people. you know, these people are doing amazing things. so it really depends on -- it's luck, you know, your genetics. i do talk about how the doctor is seeing a new patient and he or she is 70 years old, that patient, if a new patient comes into a doctor's office, and that patient is 70 years old, a doctor has no idea what is going to walk through the door. that patient could be at the -- have the body of a 55-year-old or 50-year-old, be fit as a fiddle, or he or she could be a total wreck. so, you know, it varies tremendously. and i look at it as mostly genetics. yes? the young man at the microphone. my brother. >> all right. what kind of jobs are older

americans getting? are they using the internet more to make money so they don't have to commute or travel? >> yeah. they really are. that is one of the things the experts did not get right. they didn't anticipate that so many of us would be working in front of screens all day on the internet, which is a lot easier than working on a factory floor, which is why a lot of people couldn't work 50 or a hundred years ago. they just couldn't physically. so many jobs were physical. they didn't anticipate the revolution of computers. and so that really changed a lot in terms of how people work today. what was the other part? hat was about it, right? yes? ok. thank you so much. i appreciate you guys coming out. >> you're watching american

history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span 3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. this weekend on the presidency, former boston globe journalist rtis wilke and thomas on their book the road to camelot. inside jfk's five-year campaign. here's the preview. >> one of the dangers of something like the making of the president, it's one way of looking at a presidential campaign. it's a narrative. he went to milwaukee and he said nixon is a nut job. r he went to, you know, some other epithet with current staff. or he went to new york and this were all these people on broadway and the voice boomed in the canyons of the big

buildings and everybody applaudd and went home and then they voted. the narrative. we took the approach heavily influenced in my case by sorenson that a presidential campaign is a series of benchmarks. important decisions about how to face the country. then they play out. and the thing to focus on in that school of thought are these benchmarks. i think that's what's a little unusual about the approach we took and why we viewed the whole five years together. >> watch the entire program sunday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern. this is american history tv nly on c-span 3. >> appalachian state university professor judd browning teaches class on the 1862 civil war peninsula campaign and seven days battles. he reviews union general george

mcclellan's failed attempt to take the confederate capital in richmond, virginia and examines how terrain, disease, and nutrition impacted both sides. this class is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> today we'll pick up where we left off last time in the western theatre. so the last battle we covered was? -- [inaudible] >> the last battle was shiloh, april 6 and 7, 1862. we talked about how grant thought the war was going to be over, one more battle and this thing will end and then after shiloh grant learns the war is going to last a lot longer and nothing short of absolute conquest of the south will end it. today we'll talk about a campaign going on at the exact same moment over in the eastern theatre or virginia in this case. we have the peninsula and the seven days campaign today. it starts in late march, early april. 1862 and is going