Hylan B . Lyon Hylan Benton Lyon ( February 22 , 1836 – April 25 , 1907 ) was a career officer in the United States Army until the start of the American Civil War , when he resigned rather than fight against the South . As a Confederate brigadier general , he led a daring cavalry raid into Kentucky in December 1864 , in which his troops burned seven county courthouses which were being used as barracks by the Union Army . Early life . Lyon was born in what is now Lyon County , Kentucky , to a wealthy plantation family . He was a grandson of Congressman Matthew Lyon . Both of his parents died when was very young , and he inherited the estate . Lyon ' s guardian secured a good education for him , and he attended the Masonic University of Kentucky and Cumberland College . He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at the age of sixteen , graduating in 1856 as placing nineteenth in a class of forty - eight . He was brevetted as a second lieutenant in the 2nd U . S . Artillery Regiment and was assigned to duty at Fort Myers during the Third Seminole War . After hostilities with the Seminoles waned , Lyon was promoted to the permanent rank of second lieutenant in 3rd Artillery and sent to Fort Yuma in California . The following year , he was ordered to the Washington Territory , where he took part in two battles with local Indians . Assigned to Fort Vancouver , he secured a leave of absence and returned home to Kentucky . Civil War . When the Civil War began in April 1861 , Lyon was promoted to first lieutenant . However , his sympathies were with the Confederacy and he resigned from the United States Army . He raised Company F , 3rd Kentucky Infantry , which soon became part of the 1st Kentucky Artillery . Lyon equipped the unit , which initially was known as Lyon ' s Battery , later Cobb ' s Battery . In January 1862 Lyon was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 8th Kentucky Infantry and exercised command in the absence of the colonel . Lyon ' s regiment was part of the garrison of Fort Donelson , Tennessee . After fighting off three attacks by the Union Army , the fort finally surrendered to Ulysses S . Grant . Lyon was sent as a prisoner of war . first to Camp Morton , at Indianapolis and then to Camp Chase , Ohio . He and other captured officers were sent taken to Fort Warren , where he was finally exchanged in September . His regiment was soon reorganized as the 8th Kentucky , now re - enlisted for three years , with Lyon appointed as its colonel . He fought in the forces of Earl Van Dorn and then John C . Pemberton during the Vicksburg Campaign . He and 250 of his men managed to avoid surrendering to Grant , and Lyon led them to Jackson , Mississippi , where they joined the Confederate forces there . Later , Braxton Bragg appointed Lyon as commander of two regiments of cavalry under Joseph Wheeler , and he served under James Longstreet during the Siege of Knoxville . Following the Third Battle of Chattanooga , Lyon was placed in charge of Bragg ' s artillery , saving them from capture during his subsequent retreat . Lyon returned to commanding cavalry in 1864 , this time in Mississippi as a brigadier general under Nathan B . Forrest . In December 1864 , he led 800 Kentucky cavalrymen on a raid into Tennessee and western Kentucky both to enforce Confederate draft laws and to draw Union troops away from General John Bell Hood ' s Nashville campaign . His men burned seven county courthouses that were being used to house Union troops , including those at Princeton , Kentucky and Hopkinsville , Kentucky . He retreated south after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Nashville to rejoin Forrest in Mississippi . In January 1865 , Lyon was surprised while sleeping in a private home in Red Hill , Alabama , by a detachment of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry , but he managed to kill a Union sergeant and escaped in his nightgown . Postbellum . When the war ended , Lyon accompanied Governor Isham G . Harris of Tennessee into Mexico , intending to offer his services to Maximilian . He was a civil engineer in Mexico for nearly a year before finally returning to his home in Eddyville , Kentucky , where he resumed farming and opened a prosperous mercantile business . He also served as state prison commissioner , primarily responsible for what is now the Kentucky State Penitentiary being located in his hometown of Eddyville . His initials are still inscribed over the Kentucky State Penitentiary ' s front gate . Lyon was married twice — first in 1861 to Laura O ' Hara , with whom he had a son , and in 1869 to Grace Machen . She died in 1873 , leaving Lyon again a widower , now with four additional children to raise .