ALEXANDER HAMILTON STARTED HIS CAREER AS an artillery captain. The Americans, French, and British used three types of artillery: cannons, mortars, and howitzers.
CANNONS. There were two types, field guns and siege cannons. FIELD GUNS were lighter and mounted on wheeled carriages pulled by men or horses. Used against enemy soldiers, field artillery fired solid balls and grapeshot into infantry lines. SIEGE CANNONS fired solid balls at fortifications, buildings, and ships. Against flammable targets like ships or gunpowder storehouses, artillerymen would load the cannons with red-hot iron balls that could set the enemy structures on fire. Also effective against ships were bar shot and chain shot, in which two halves or two whole cannon balls were connected by a bar or chain. In the air, the two weights would cause the chain to rotate—particularly good for taking down ship’s masts or rigging.
MORTARS. With barrels that rose at an angle from a flat bed of wood, mortars were used to lob an exploding shell high over enemy fortifications (cannons shot along flatter trajectories). “Bombs bursting in air” came from mortars. When the bombs burst like this, they’d rain deadly shrapnel on the enemy below.
HOWITZERS. If a cannon and a mortar had a child, it would be a howitzer. Howitzers were mounted on wheeled carriages and could fire bombs or cannonballs at different trajectories.