Daily Quiz for October 11, 2008

Napoleon. The Napoleon 12-pounder gun howitzer was the most popular smoothbore artillery piece employed in the American Civil War (there was also a 6-pounder Napoleon that was less widely used). The muzzle-loaded artillery piece–named for French emperor Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III)–was adopted by the U.S. Army shortly before the Civil War. Confederates captured a great many Federal pieces, but also copied the design to manufacture themselves. The cannon fired a variety of ammunition and had a maximum effective range of between 800 and 1,000 yards.