Carol,
There was one load that was used mostly in smooth bore muskets called buck and ball. It was a paper cartridge that consisited of one ball of the caliber of the weapon plus ususally three buck shots of a smaller caliber plus the powder charge. The idea was to tear the paper, pour the powder in followed by the proper caliber ball and on top of that the buck shot. The idea being that when you fired it at the enemy you had a chance to hit one with the ball and with luck two or three more with the shot. Even if it did not kill them it would cause a wound that would require some of the other men to stop fighting to render aid to the wounded man. IF you fired this same round in a rifled weapon the rifleing would cause the projectiles to fly in a "string" sort of way and not spead out to do maximun damage.
FC