Purpose of bull ring?

[Mike Serpa]

I guess the ring is behind the log fence. Would this be a ring for bull fights? Or a stockade to hold beef before slaughter? Something else? Thanks.

Brandy Station, Virginia. Col. G.H. Sharpe's quarters. Headquarters, Army of the Potomac. Bull ring in the distance. LOC #00721

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

I have no answer for you Mike. But its certainly a great pic and I'd like to hear more about this too.

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

Just the sheer amount of detail the old photography was able to pick up pretty extraordinary

 

[alan polk]

Is there a date to the photograph? That's a pretty substantial stockade. I would just bet on a stockyard of sorts. Is that a Sybley tent set up all by itself to the right of the stockade? Those type tents might have been used for cooking. Thanks for sharing.

 

[chubachus]

Why would there be a tent in it? For the butcher?

 

[alan polk]

Cooking over a fire inside the tent. Not inside the stockade, in the field to the right of the stockade or "log fence."

 

[unicornforge]

A tent would get nasty greasy and dirty from cooking in it over an open fire.

 

[Mike Serpa]

Is there a date to the photograph? That's a pretty substantial stockade. I would just bet on a stockyard of sorts. Is that a Sybley tent set up all by itself to the right of the stockade? Those type tents might have been used for cooking. Thanks for sharing.

No date.

Why would there be a tent in it? For the butcher?

Beer tent?

Cooking over a fire inside the tent. Not inside the stockade, in the field to the right of the stockade or "log fence."

I think you are right, It looks like a berm is there.

 

[Allie]

Surely there are some cattlemen on this forum somewhere! My guess given that it's specifically a "bull" ring is that it's for breeding. News articles advertise the services of bulls at this era.

 

[chubachus]

Wouldn't it have been easier to build and use less material to build a split-rail fence for a bull ring rather than presumably pile-driving each log to build a wall? Maybe because it is on high ground it could be a defensive structure? Or maybe it is a bull ring on high ground for better drainage?

 

[MaryDee]

Anything that will contain a charging dairy bull (notorious for their extremely nasty dispositions) would need to be extremely stout, probably why a stockade instead of a rail fence was used.

 

[AndyHall]

Probably a variant of "bullpen," the "enclosed segment of a stockade; sometimes the specific area in which prisoners were kept," from Garrison's Civil War Usage.

 

[Yankeedave]

It looks like the stockade is inside a brush pen, an opening in middle ground and extending out of frame on right. To the left it blends in with what is in the trees.

 

[chubachus]

Another image that shows more to the right of the camp:

 

[alan polk]

Another image that shows more to the right of the camp:

View attachment 111285

Yeah, I see what your saying now. It kind of reminds me of our old home place where we have a large pasture circumscribed by barbed wire fencing, but inside the pasture and fence we have what is called a catch pen which is used for working cattle, cutting or culling out certain ones from others etc. I wonder if that's what the stockade was used for-- a kind of processing center of sorts before being put to pasture.

 

[Mike Serpa]

Interesting comments by AndyHall and Yankeedave.

 

[DaveBrt]

My guess is that it is a POW collection pen. I find it hard to believe this much work would have been expended on cattle and there is no indication that it is a defensive work. So I think it was a short term collection point.

BYW, the date of the photo is April, 1864.

 

[Yankeedave]

Right in front of the stockade is what looks like a trench dug to stop artillery rounds.