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, Marion and Hopkinsville. He retreated south after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Nashville to rejoin Forrest in Mississippi.