Movies always show great explosions and men flying left and right when a cannonball hits a rank of marching men but how did the impact actually look? Would it send dirt and debris in every direction? Did the cannonball just mow down a few men in a row? What did cannonball injuries usually look like?
In the 19th century, there were four primary types of ammunition fired by field artillery. Each one had different uses and very different effects on their unlucky victims.
You can see the cross-sections of four types of ammunition used during the American Civil War (1861-1865)..
Let me discuss each type in a little more detail, since each type killed and maimed in different ways.
1: Round/solid shot: Roundshot was just a solid iron (occasionally stone) ball. The oldest and simplest artillery projectile, roundshot was also the most common artillery projectile fired during the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the other conflicts of the late 18th and early 19th century. In fact, 70-80% of the rounds fired by the Royal Artillery during the Napoleonic Wars were roundshot!
Donald Graves writes about the ammunition load carried by British and American artillery in the War of 1812. As you can see, most of it is roundshot:
A Royal Artillery light 6-pdr. gun [firing the fairly small six-pound roundshot] was supplied with eight roundshot in its axle boxes and 32 roundshot, five heavy and five light canister rounds in the limber box, with 92 roundshot, heavy and light canister rounds and twenty shrapnel rounds in its ammunition wagon. American 6-pdr. guns [were] well supplied with eighteen roundshot in their ammunition chests while 62 roundshot and 30 canister rounds were carried in their caissons.
As Graves points out, these guns had a relativity short range.
As a general rule, the maximum range of light guns was about 1,000 yards while heavier piece[s] reached out to about twice that distance. The maximum effective range, however, was considerably less. Given the inherent inaccuracy of the smoothbore gun which had no rifling to impart a stable trajectory to its projectiles, horizontal displacement of the trajectory was very marked at ranges over 800 yards. The maximum range for howitzers [which fired roundshot at this range] was between 1,000 and 1,400 yards but their maximum effective range was around 800-900 yards for the light calibres. British practice was to fire shrapnel or roundshot at ranges over 600 yards.
Roundshot fired at packed ranks of men had a decent chance to hit. Patrick Griffith summarizes some Napoleonic tests against company-sized targets.
| Nation | Range (m) | Hit % |
|---|---|---|
| Austria | 1000 | 40-70 |
| Prussia | 800 | 35 |
| Britain | 950 | 26-31 |
| Belgium | 900 | 20 |
Roundshot was the heaviest and longest-range projectile available to gunners, so tactics of the era made good use them. Gunners tried to "graze," or bounce, roundshot off of hard, flat ground. This helped rounds travel further, giving them more chances to hit enemy men, guns, and horses. As Graves says:
The trajectory of roundshot was fairly flat - leaving the gun muzzle, it dropped steadily until it hit the ground on "first graze" and then ricocheted and continued on to its "second graze" at which point some 80% went on further. Throughout most of its flight, the shot was below height of a man, skimming, grazing and bouncing until energy was spent.
Gunners tried to position their guns to deliver oblique fire, bouncing roundshot down a line of infantry to wipe out as many men as possible. Patrick Griffith writes about how gunners sought to achieve this flanking fire:
Cross fires and enfilades were for ever foremost in gunners' minds, and in the Napoleonic Wars the French became expert at achieving them ... When artillery was used to support an attack it would once again attempt to fire into the enemy's flank ... The closer the artillery could come, the better; and the French became very bold in this role.
Men marching in column were also vulnerable to cannon fire from their front. Roundshot fired at a narrow line of men might only kill 2-3 men. Roundshot fired at a column would kill dozens. For reference, a line of infantry in the center-left and columns on the right. In his memoirs of the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, French officer Jean Barres wrote about the lethal effects of artillery:
The cannonballs ploughed through our ranks from the first to the last, each time sweeping away at least 30 men when they took the column full on.
There are other cases of multiple men being mowed down by one roundshot. At the Battle of Konigsberg in 1807, 13 men were hit by a single roundshot!
To make matters worse, in a densely-packed formation, men hit by a roundshot could also be violently shoved into other men, causing further injuries. Barres wrote about the Battle of Eylau in 1807:
Once, the file touching me on the right was struck full in the chest ... The shock was so violent that those next to the men struck were thrown down together with the poor wretches who were hit.
James Burbeck writes more about the effects roundshot had on its luckless targets:
The cannonballs themselves were subsonic, and lobbed slowly through the air, loudly whistling as they approached. Even at the end of its effective range, rolling shot would bowl men over and cause widespread injury. If flying shot hit a horse, it was not just a matter of the horse falling over; the ball might strike the saddlebags, scattering the contents in every direction as the horse went spinning, splattering pieces of the animal closely behind the chunks of leather and cloth. At close range, artillery fire would punch holes straight through entire sections of units.
At the Battle of Corunna in 1809, French artillery took a brutal toll on the senior British officers. One witness wrote:
"Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the fight about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a cannon shot; the shock threw him from his horse with violence, but he rose again in a sitting posture … No less a victim of this galling fire was Sir David Baird himself, his left arm smashed by a roundshot…"
Moore's wounds were especially bad. The hole in his left shoulder was so deep that his lung was showing. His left ribs and collarbone had been crushed. His chest muscles hung from his body in strips. His left arm dangled from a few strips of flesh. Needless to say, Moore was mortally-wounded.
In a similar vein, Kevin Kiley writes about the devastating effect of a 192 massed Austrian guns at Aspern-Essling in 1809:
General Pouzet, a longtime friend of Marshal Lannes, was killed, and St. Hilaire was mortally wounded, having a foot blown off by artillery fire. Lannes saw his friend being taken to the rear in a blanket, and he was later hit by a roundshot which shattered both knees, mortally wounding him. Both he and St. Hilaire would die in great agony after the battle was over and they had been evacuated. Lannes could not save them.
British infantry officer Major Thomas Austin was luckier than some men hit by roundshot, but not by much. He wrote in his diary (later published under the apt title Old Stick-Leg) about his experience:
"...another cannon-ball swept off my left leg below the knee-joint; and although felled to the earth by the irresistible force of the blow, I experienced no sensation of faintness; but felt excessively hot, thirsty and savage. ... The moment after being struck down, I had sufficiently recovered from the shock, or more correctly had not been prostrated by it, as to be able to sit up and examine my wound.
I found the bones were laid bare for some distance up the limb, and appeared as white as the finest ivory, the tendons dangling and quivering like so many pieces of thread; ... Soon after receiving my wound, however, there came on a burning sensation in the injured part which gradually spread over my whole frame, and I felt parching thirst which seemed to have converted my tongue into a fire-brand; ... The battlefield was, to me, now divested of all the excitement and dignity of glorious war."
Medical historian Michael Crumplin recounts some similar injuries sustained by British soldiers during the later Battle of Waterloo in 1815:
Wounds from heavy (3–12lbs) iron round shot were usually fatal if received centrally or on the head and neck. Many limbs were avulsed [i.e. ripped off] by round shot. Tangential strikes by these large balls could cause severe tissue internal disruption. Quartermaster Sir William Howe de Lancey was hit a glancing blow on his left loin by a round shot. He took a week to die and, at post mortem, eight ribs had been avulsed from his spine and he had suffered muscle, lung and renal injuries.
![avulsed [i.e. ripped off]](https://i.imgur.com/zOBOedb.png){kind=link}