Confederate Soldiers Reunion
From a letter written by Snow Chandler Castleberry, granddaughter of Isom Warren Craddick. Letter is dated April 5, 1967.
You said you remember Mamma (Katie Craddick Chandler) telling you about the man who they took to the Old Soldiers Reunion on the cot. It seems to me that this must have been Mamma's oldest brother, John Craddick. He wasn't in the war, but used to always go to the reunion as did we all. It was the big event in our lives. They always had it the week of the full moon in August every year, and we always went for one or two days and Uncle Johnnie (John Craddick) and his family usually camped in a tent and stayed the whole week.
Grandpa Craddick (Isom) was a Civil War Veteran, and he always went for the whole week too. It was like a big picnic and carnival combined. I remember that was the first place I ever saw a merry-go-round. Every afternoon right after lunch there would be speaking at a big open shed. All the old soldiers would be there for the program then they would march to the merry-go-round and all ride on it while the music played "Dixie". I remember they would all throw their hats up in the air and start hollering when that music started to play.
It could have been grandpa (Isom Craddick) that they carried on the cot (Katie Craddick Chandler had told her granddaughter that a member of the family went to the reunion carried on a cot the last year of his life.) but seems to me it was Uncle Johnnie. He died in 1919 with T.B. Grandpa died in September 1915.