The songs that most interest me are contemporaneous and near contemporaneous accounts, people who write long after the fact tend to generalize, often from heresay,and put their own spin on the stories, reflecting the judgements and prejudices of their own time, and of course, they lack the critical details--

On the subject of lynching ballads--hangings and public executions were always the subject of broadsides, which were sold to all the curious who gathered--we tend to forget that hangings used to be public events, which the whole family would attend, and broadsiders did a brisk business, as did entertainers, food vendors, and of course, pickpockets.

The authorities went to great trouble to convey the guilt of the condemned, for the simple and expedient reason that if the crowds that gathered for the execution believed that an injustice was being done, the crowd could turn on them-- They tended to act swiftly and harshly toward individuals that tried to turn the crowds against them with dissenting opinions--