htaccess: request file by partial name

With the assistance of htaccess, is it possible to have files stored as…

/content/001 Some sort of description.html
/content/002 Some sort of description.html

…or as…

/content/Some sort of description.001
/content/Some sort of description.002

…and get the desired file by requesting only the numeric portion of the name?

$.get("content/001", function(data) {
   • • • 
}, "html");