Technically not much help to the OP I suppose, but I keep coming across threads that remind me of letter passages...
A typical load- "Just think, a knapsack containing a shirt a pair of stockings, a pair of drawers, an overcoat and a dress coat, a blanket, a haversack full of [gibberish transcription] and trinkets, a canteen holding two quarts, a cartridge box containing forty cartridges, a belt holding a cap box and bayonet, and a musket. All these amount to forty pounds or more."
Learning the ropes, "...I have packed my extra shirt, drawers, blanket and stockings in the officer's baggage and if the time comes when I cannot do this my overcoat may "go to the dogs" and so may my shirt and drawers. Very few of the old soldiers we meet every day have knapsacks. They say a man cannot carry them. All they have is a blanket and one suit of clothes..."
Marching towards Perryville in the heat and dust of fall 1862 Kentucky, "It went hard with us the first day, I assure you. Our burdens made it so. I fortunately had packed some of my things as usual in the officer's mess chest at Louisville so that all I had was one suit of clothes besides a dress coat and overcoat and my rubber blanket. These are all I have and all I can possibly carry on my back. It is very doubtful about seeing the things I left behind but I do not care much... Most of the boys brought along knapsacks half as large as themselves and as a natural consequence clothing was scattered all along the road for 3 or 4 days..."
Showing both the evidence of ditched gear and the rapport the troops felt with Old Rosey... "Our division was reviewed the other day by Gen Rosecrans. Noticing that I had no knapsack on he pleasantly remarked as he rode by, 'Get all the law allows you and keep it. Remember that, Orderly Sergeant'... He joked pleasantly with the boys as he rode up and down the ranks..."
And maybe the only use many foot soldiers had for their sword... ;-) "...our hardest marching must be over. Mine anyway, for I have learned from 'the old soldier' and carry no knapsack. Only an extra overcoat, which if too warm I sling over my shoulder on my sword..." A month later they would be shivering and suffering in the cold winter rains of Tennessee...