However, when many of the charter members were impressed by the recording of the Syracuse Brigadiers performing the Leroy Anderson composition The Phantom Regiment, the corps' name was changed before the unit made its debut, with the color guard renamed the Phantomettes.

[2][3] In the corps' early years, the Phantomettes and a corps-sponsored all-boy color guard called the Raiders were competitively successful.

Financially unable to field a corps in 1965 through 1967, alumni and former staff members reorganized and officially incorporated on September 11, 1967.

In that first year of the corps' return, perhaps the corps' greatest asset was its new musical arranger, Phantom Regiment alumnus and future DCI Hall of Fame member, Jim Wren, who would go on to arrange the unit's brass music for the next 32 years.

Prior to the founding of DCI in 1972, the Phantom Regiment, like most corps of the time, was strictly a local organization.

At DCI, the Regiment earned its first Top Twelve Finalist placement, beginning a string that has held through 2024.

From 1975, Phantom Regiment's field visual shows had been designed by Norm Wheeler through 1979, when in 1980 future DCI Hall of Fame member John Brazale would move from Color Guard caption Head to Visual program Design Caption.

Returning home after the 1992 DCI Championships, Brazale had complained of having severe headaches during the last few weeks, and was soon diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and died within months.

In 1996, Phantom Regiment tied the Blue Devils of Concord, California for its first DCI World Championship.

In 2008, with its performance of "Spartacus", Phantom Regiment defeated the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps by a margin of 0.025 to win its second (and first outright) DCI World Championship.