Some Big Guns by Frank R. Stockton

Ever since the invention of gunpowder, the men who have been devoting their attention to the science of gunnery for purposes of war have been making their cannon larger and larger.

This is not the case with the weapons that are carried by soldiers; for our rifles and muskets are much smaller than those used by our ancestors. A hundred or two years ago, the great flint-lock muskets and blunderbusses were twice as large as the rifles now used, although they did not carry a ball half the distance, or with any thing like the accuracy of our improved arms.