A cannon chainshot

[fernando]

A transcript of written accounts of this amunition in my neck of the woods ... in the 1600's.

... For shorter distances, a hollow load filled with musket balls was used: the small-bullet bags. Quite effective against cavalry, as reported by Mateus Rodrigues, still on the subject of Telena's campaign in 1645:
(…) Soon the enemy came with all the cavalry, carrying us with great force and bringing two pieces between the same cavalry, with six mules each piece, who ran with them like the same cavalry, and as soon as they arrived at fire, they charged with them which did a lot of damage, because all our people were on a pinecone and couldn't help but kill many people, because due to the shot at close range.
Twenty years later, in the battle of Montes Claros, the use of hollow-load projectiles by Portuguese artillery is recorded:
(…) And the Count of S. João and the artillery general (…) ordered the artillery pieces, which were loaded with bags of small bullets, not to give the first charge, until the enemy was in the distance of fifty steps (…); and the damage they suffered was so remarkable that the battalions of the right flank, forced by fear, turned the half bodies of the horses with the appearance of wanting to flee (…).