grass-hoppers

[George Thompson]

Here is a sense of "grass-hopper" not in OED:

The New-York Riflemen, we understand, are to shoot for their honorary
Prize Medal on Thursday Evening, at Tyler’s, on the Greenwich Road.
***  We have heard it suggested, that two light field six-pounders, or
grass-hoppers of the State Artillery, are to be attached to the
Riflemen. . . .  Prisoner of Hope, June 18, 1800, p. 2, col. 2

The sense, I suppose, is that the gun sends a shot skimming low to the
ground, or bouncing along the ground?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.