The 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, known as the Anderson Cavalry and the 160th Volunteers, was a three-year cavalry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was recruited and formed in the summer of 1862 by officers and men of the Anderson Troop, an independent company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers that had been mustered the previous November. Until the last three months of the war the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry was an independent unit reporting directly to the headquarters of the Army of the Cumberland, performing escort, scouting, courier and other details for the commanding general. Composed of hand-picked men most of whom were qualified to receive commissions, it became the favorite unit of both Generals William S. Rosecrans and George H. Thomas. History The regiment of 1100 men in ten companies was raised by officers of the Anderson Troop in July and August 1862 from more than 3,000 applicants representing 30 Pennsylvania counties. The average age of the recruits was 20 and all had been required to submit letters of recommendation from upstanding citizens of their local communities. After the first 200 men reported to "Camp Alabama" at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, six companies (B through G) were mustered into United States service by a captain of the regular 1st Cavalry on August 22. Anderson Troop was to have become Company A, but the consolidation never took place and Company A was raised from recruits in October 1862. The Anderson Cavalry, as the regiment was immediately known, was authorized to wear a distinctive dragoon-style shell jacket with orange trimming instead of cavalry yellow. Antietam campaign Partially organized, without any commissioned officers except their prospective colonel Capt. William J. Palmer, and equipped only with sabers, half of the 900 soldiers then in camp were sent to help the Army of the Potomac resist the Confederate Invasion of Maryland. Approximately 400 men, provided horses and carbines, were scattered as pickets, skirmished with Confederates near Hagerstown and participated in the Battle of Antietam, where one trooper was killed. Palmer was captured after the battle while scouting for General George B. McClellan behind the lines. Army of the Cumberland The 15th returned to Camp Alabama for drilling by non-commissioned regulars stationed there. On November 7, 1862, it left Carlisle by railroad for the Department of the Cumberland under its lieutenant colonel, William Spencer, traveling over a period of three days to Louisville, Kentucky,