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.

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.

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.

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.

In January 1865, Lyon was surprised while sleeping in a private home in Red Hill, Alabama, by a detachment of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

When the war ended, Lyon accompanied Governor Isham G. Harris of Tennessee into Mexico, intending to offer his services to Emperor 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.