Band at the execution

[Eva Elisabeth]

(06-28-2014 02:30 PM)BettyO Wrote:  That the food vendors were recorded to me, proves that they were actually there - as "tasteless" as it may be....

Would not have been the first time in history that people were "tasteless" - panem et circenses was pretty much the same.
   
And in July 1861, civilian sightseers equipped with picnic baskets went to Centreville Heights to watch the battle of Bull Run.

London Times correspondent William Howard Russell reported: “On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex .... The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood —‘That is splendid, Oh my! Is not that first rate?..."
   
"Entertaining Parade. Watching the Federal army advance seemed like the perfect Sunday afternoon diversion." (Frank Leslie: "The Soldier in Our Civil War".)