On today’s date in 1869, a visitor to Boston’s Back Bay could have marveled at a huge, new wooden structure sporting American flags and surrounded by a mini-village of peanut vendors and lemonade stands.

Inside, an orchestra of 1000 sat surrounded by a chorus of 10,000. Over the stage hung giant portraits of Handel and Beethoven, and higher yet depictions of two angels gazing heavenwards by a banner reading “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.” “Christmas in June, you ask?” No, the audience of 12,000 had assembled for what was billed as a “Great National Peace Jubilee” organized by bandmaster Patrick Gilmore.

The June 19th concert marked the end of a 5-day festival of music and reconciliation, as America tried to mend the wounds caused by its recent Civil War. Former Union General and current President Ulysses S. Grant was on hand, and the New York Times opined that the Jubilee offered proof that, “our people can think of something beyond mechanical inventions and the almighty dollar.”

During the Jubilee, the massive orchestra and chorus performed selections ranging from “classical” works by Bach and Mozart to more recent works by Meyerbeer and Verdi.

A musical assessment of the Peace Jubilee appeared on today’s date that year from the pen of John S. Dwight, Boston’s leading music critic of that day, who found the great chorus “glorious and inspiring” and the huge orchestra “splendid but hard to hear.” However, he dismissed a performance of Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus,” accompanied by 100 real anvils, as a “childish, trivial thing for such a grand occasion.”