Examples from literature

• A cannonball struck Saint Ruth, as he stood in the middle of the battery and killed him instantly. 
• A cannonball took off his left arm at the elbow. 
• Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannonball came tearing through the trees and pitched in the sand not a hundred yards from where we two were talking. 
• One of these fellows, after being separated from his corps, had been struck by a cannonball which had cut off both his legs and killed his horse. 
• The first shot has only a tiny charge of explosive, and the cannonball barely makes it out of the muzzle before falling to the ground.