Career
He served under Jean Baptiste Kléber in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, losing his left leg to a cannonball on December 17, 1795 but continuing in the army with a wooden leg and joined Kléber on the Egyptian campaign. Accompanying Napoleon on the French invasion of Egypt, he was present with him when he landed at Valletta to occupy Malta on 12 June 1798. He also accompanied Napoleon on the surveys to trace the route of what later become the Suez Canal.
He then had to have his right arm amputated when his elbow was smashed by a bullet during a new assault on Acre on April 9, 1799.
He was just starting to learn to write with his left hand when a gangrene struck, causing a fever which killed him. Napoleon wrote of him in the order of the day: "Our universal regrets accompany General Caffarelli to the grave.
The army is losing one of its bravest leaders. Egypt one of its legislators, France one of its best citizens, and science, an illustrious scholar." He is the hero of Youssef Chahine"s film Adieu Bonaparte.