Whatever the ‘preferred term’ is, the general characteristics of the Danish amusettes, curricle guns, and galloper guns, with one exception, were the same. The difference lies in what the different artillery arms called them.

Artillery nomenclature of the period is interesting in itself and there were at least three types or ‘makes’ of the British 3-pounders during the period of the War of the American Revolution. Both Harold Peterson and Adrian Caruana are excellent references for the light 3-pounders beginning in the period of the War of the American Revolution.

First there is the galloper used by both sides in the Revolution which is described and pictured in two of Peterson’s works (The Book of the Continental Soldier and Roundshot and Rammers) is very helpful. Interestingly, Imrie/Risley Miniatures makes a 54mm galloper of the period which is taken from a photograph of one in existence owned by the US Department of the Interior which manages the National Battlefield Parks and they have outstanding historians who work in the parks and are continually doing research to improve the Parks. The picture of the galloper is on page 123 of The Book of the Continental Soldier and describes the carriage itself being used for 1-, 1 1/2,-, 2-, and 3-pounders and instead of the usual train, the piece had two shafts to which a horse could be hitched to pull the piece. I’ve also seen an illustration where the gun crew could pull the piece with either drag ropes or bricoles.

This galloper is also described, with dimensions, on page 115 of A Treatise of Artillery by John Muller:

‘There is one gun carriage more, which is called Galloper; it serves for a pound and a half gun. This carriage has shafts so as to be drawn without a limber, and is thought by some artillerists to be more convenient and preferable to other field carriages; and as it may likewise serve for out light three and six pounders, we shall give the following…’ And what follows are the dimensions of the gun carriage and its component parts.

The illustration of the gun carriage is between pages 114 and 115 and is noted as being Plate XII.

The interesting point of the illustration in Muller is the very close resemblance to what the Danes referred to as an amusette.

Louis de Tousard’s American Artillerist’s Companion of 1809 defines an amusette as ‘a species of offensive weapon invented by Marshal Saxe’ (Volume II, 627), and a galloper as ‘a piece of a small caliber (Volume II, 639).

The Light 3-pounders also used by the British of the period were the Pattison 3-pounder (also known as the Irish 3-pounder) and the Townsend 3-pounder. Both had the usual bracket or split trail, the general difference being that the Townsend 3-pounder could be employed as a galloper, having the shafts for the horse being attached to the trail of the piece for transport. The Pattison 3-pounder, however, had a limber that was designed with a mantlet and the mantlet was employed with a fitting and ‘gun port’ for a 1-inch caliber wall piece which was an enlarged ‘version’ of the Long Land or Short Land Pattern Flintlock musket.

The gun mantlet armed with the wall piece also fits the description of what other nations called an amusette.

The light 3-pounders could be carried by their gun crews on their shoulders using the handspikes of the piece.

There was also a Light Infantry 3-pounder, and any and all of these might be referred to as either a grasshopper or a butterfly. The identification of which one was what, beyond the Pattison and Townsend 3-pounders could be confusing. The basic characteristic of all three of these artillery pieces was that they had the standard bracket carriage and did not resemble the galloper carriage in Muller’s artillery treatise nor the ‘amusettes’ of the Danes.

The conclusion that can be made is that the light field piece referred to by the Americans and British as a galloper was similar to what the Danes called an amusette and what would later be called by the British the curricle.