LIMBERS

, in Artillery, a sort of advanced train, joined to the carriage of a cannon on a march. It is composed of two shafts, wide enough to receive a horse between them, called the fillet horse: these shafts are joined by two bars of wood, and a bolt of iron at one end, and mounted on a pair of rather small wheels. Upon the axle-tree rises a strong iron spike, which is put into a hole in the hinder part of the train of the gun carriage, to draw it by. But when a gun is in action, the Limbers are taken off, and run out behind it.—See the dimensions and figure of it in Müller's Treatise of Artillery, pa. 187.