Grapeshot was a kind of anti-personnel ammunition used in cannons, was similar to canister shot. The typical design is of a mass of loosely packed metal balls in a canvas bag that are intended to break apart at high velocity after being fired. It gives an effect similar to a shotgun scaled up to cannon size.

Battles in which grapeshot used include Culloden, 1746, (Bonnie Prince Charlie (Scotland/Britain) v Duke of Cumberland (Britain) ) and Borodino, 1812 (Prince Mikhail Kutuzov (Russia) v Napoleon Bonaparte (France) ). These are just a few examples.

Napoleon, when a brigadier general during the later stages of the French Revolution, famously dispersed a Royalist mob on the streets of Paris with a "whiff of grapeshot" on 5 October 1795. He was rewarded with the command of the Army of Italy in 1796, and his victories at the battles of Lodi, Castiglione, Arcola and Rivoli provided a springboard for his military and political ambitions.