Definition of "cannoneer"

Then ſe the bringing of our ordinance / Along the trench into the battery, / VVhere vve vvil haue gabions of ſix foot broad / To ſaue our Cannoniers from muſket ſhot, […]

c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The Second Part […], 2nd edition, part 2, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act III, scene i, signature [G6], recto

The Irish cannoneers stood gallantly to their pieces till they were cut down to a man.

1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, page 244

Just as the spring came laughing through the strife / With all its gorgeous cheer; / In the bright April of historic life / Fell the great cannoneer.

1894 (date written), James R[yder] Randall, “John Pelham”, in H. M. Wharton, compiler, War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy 1861–1865 […], Philadelphia, Pa.: International Publishing Co., published 1904, stanza 1, page 326

The American cannoneers, normally positioned well behind the front lines, found themselves unexpectedly thrust into a firefight. The cannoneers slammed shell after shell at the big German tanks, but the 105mm high-explosive rounds burst with little effect.

2002, Mark J. Reardon, “The Lost Battalion”, in Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler’s Panzer Counteroffensive (Modern War Studies), Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, page 156