From the "Documents of the Senate of the State of New York",  comes a "Report of the New York State Board of Examiners To Select Improved Fire-Arms For the National Guard". This 1897 report shows the recommendation of the Savage leveraction for the New York National Guard over the Krag and several other firearms of the times. Some interesting insights on cut-offs and clips. This is article No. 37. The link below starts on page 11 of this article so if you read this you will have to scroll back some. Appears they were just totally in love with the Savage.

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Interesting 'Opinion Piece' - The 1895 date of the report or recommendation to the N.Y. State Senate is relevant.

The "Foreign Bolt Rifle" had only been in production at Springfield Armory for about a year.

"Lever-guns and the Straight-Pull are American inventions", per the report.

The authors did not think highly of "Magazine Cut-Offs" or "Clips", as part of a Service Rifle.

The assumption that American recruits would be 'familiar' with the Lever-Gun seemed a weak argument.

The whole report seems to mirror the period dissatisfaction, that a Foreign Design had been adopted for the U.S. Army.

The Savage Arms Company being located in Utica, N.Y. was probably relevant to the recommendation. The Lever-Action suggested was probably the Model 1895 Savage. (This model was only made for four years, in .303 Savage, and is very similar to the Model 1899).

FWIW - The only 'military' adoption of a Savage Lever-Gun, that I can recall, was the Model 99 (in .303 Savage) by the Montreal Home Guard, during WW1. Cool Rifle!

p.s. Per Wikipedia - The State of N.Y. contracted for model 1895 Savage Lever Actions (in .30-40 caliber) during 1896, but, the contract was cancelled.

A Savage Lever-Gun in .30-40 caliber would be a great rarity.

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I thought it interesting that they had tests with the functionality of the different actions in a prone position and the leveraction of the Savage got the nod for the easiest to use.

The Adjutant General of New Jersey report of 1896 did not recommend the Krag, Winchester, or Savage for its National Guard. It suggested a single shot in .38 caliber in an improved Springfield design using smokeless powder.

Starting on page 35:

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I guess some New Jersey shooters liked the old .38-55 on the target range and wanted a modern 'jacketed' version of the cartridge for the service!

From the same link as posted in the "1895 Winchester" was this part that fits with this topic.

"In 1896 New York State realized that its National Guard was inadequately armed.  Although the New York National Guard’s single shot, black powder Remington Rolling Blocks (.50-70 caliber) were reliable, they were old, worn and hopelessly obsolete in an era of bolt action repeaters firing small bore, high velocity, smokeless cartridges.  The U.S. Army had already adopted a small bore, bolt action repeating rifle, the Krag-Jorgensen, which fired a .30-40 cartridge.  The Navy had adopted the straight pull action Model 1895 Winchester-Lee, which fired 6mm (.236) caliber bullet.  In 1895 the New York Legislature passed a law that commissioned a Board of Examiners to conduct trials of .30 caliber magazine-fed, breechloading rifles of American manufacture.  The rifles were to have a 28 inch barrel, fire the .30-40 cartridge used by the Army, and were to be equipped with a magazine cutoff, safety trigger and a magazine counter.  Features to be judged included; safety, strength, simplicity, speed of action, ease of loading the magazine or replacing the magazine, and ease of use as a single shot.  Twelve contenders, including Winchester submitted rifles.  Winchester submitted the new Model 1895, which performed flawlessly in the nine tests of the trials.  However, the Model 1895 did not have the required magazine cutoff and magazine counter.  The New York State contract would have been for $300,000 for 15,000 rifles.  The Board of Examiner’s final decision was between the Winchester Model 1895 and the Savage Model 1895 military musket and the Governor of New York announced that the Savage entrant had won the competition.  Unlike the Winchester, the Savage Model 1895 had a magazine cutoff and magazine counter, and had fewer parts, making better able to meet the simplicity requirement.  Winchester and other entrants challenged the Board’s choice and the Governor’s decision.

Here's the rest of it.

"The legal challenge and public controversy forced New York to decide not to purchase modern rifles for the National Guard.  Instead New York accepted free obsolete single shot Springfield Model 1884 Trapdoor rifles from the U.S. Government to replace its obsolete single shot Rolling Block rifles.  When New York National Guard units were deployed to Cuba during the Spanish-American War, they carried the old black powder .45-70 Trapdoors into combat against the Spanish who were armed with modern Mauser bolt action repeating rifles."

So politics got in the way again and the guard from New York had to go with a black powder cartridge rifle, causing some possible unnecessary casualties that may have been avoided if they would have had a smokeless powder type rifle."

When, the 34th Michigan was moved up into position at Santiago, Cuba, they were armed with .45-70 Springfield Rifles.

The Regulars instructed the Michigan Volunteers to "cover our flanks and rear".
They also advised the Michiganders ... "and don't shoot those damn things".

The day before, the 71st New York had fired their Black Powder Trapdoors and brought down a rain of Spanish Artillery and 7mm rifle fire on the American positions, 'marked' by white smoke.

From what I can gather, the State Volunteer Units did not bring their State's arms, but, received Federal weapons in the Federal Camp locations, where they were concentrated.
('Trapdoors' were issued at Camp Alger, in Virginia, to the 33rd & 34th Michigan Vol. Inf. They drilled and did guard duty with wooden 'clubs' until finally issued the .45-70 rifles).
It would have been a very lucky or 'connected' State Volunteer Unit that got Krags for the Santiago Cuba Campaign.

The Black Powder smoke did draw fire and increase U.S. casualties.

IMHO - During the SAW, it probably didn't matter how modern a State's arms were. The guns were probably left back in the home state, when the men sworn into Federal Service were shipped to Federal Camps.