Though I suspect that your photo of "The Arizona State Guard" is likely ACCURATE, at least in the late 19th Century, as there is a group photo of the First US Volunteer Cavalry (The Rough Riders) in The Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio. - The plaque beneath the photo states that the photo is of the NM & AZ volunteers & that it was made "a few weeks after their arrival in San Antonio".
(SOME of The Rough Riders received USVC uniforms about 3 weeks before they left Ft. Sam Houston for Cuba.)
Prior to that "uniform issue", whatever clothing, shoes/boots and hats/caps that one might have had on Muster Day was "acceptable field dress".- Records indicate that MANY Rough Riders arrived in Daquiri, Cuba armed with "privately owned" firearms, knives/swords and other "acquired" equipment.
Records at The Ft. Sam Houston Museum indicate that ALL the machineguns were "privately owned" & some of those MG were "formally presented to" The Rough Riders by Tiffany's Jewelers of NYC.
(In late 1899, those three Colt's "Tater Diggers" were returned to the Tiffany family & one of those MG are now "on long-term loan" to the NRA Museum.)
We San Antonians were/are PROUD of being the place where The Rough Riders "mustered into service", that they trained all over Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Hays, Medina & Wilson Counties and departed to the embarkation point (in FL) from Ft Sam Houston.
(Several places in SA still have/display photos, markers, etc, which refer to "Our Rough Rider Heroes". Furthermore, several members of "King Antonio's Royal Staff" still wear "the rather gaudy" 1stUSVC dress uniforms at our FIESTA SAN ANTONIO.)
yours, satx
