Blowing from a gun is a method of execution in which the victim is
typically tied to the mouth of a cannon which is then fired, resulting in
death. George Carter Stent described the process as follows:
The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of
his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen
to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off
right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards
distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the
body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.