HISTORICAL NOTES:
The 20th (also known as Lay’s) Regiment Confederate Cavalry was organized about April 23, 1864, by authority of the War Department, dated Richmond, Va., January 21, 1864. This authority was revoked early in 1865, and the remnant of the command assigned to other organizations.
Benjamin D. Lay, March 20, 1863, was a Surgeon in the army. January 16, 1864, he applied for and soon afterward received permission to raise a regiment within the lines of the enemy. General Polk confined his enlistments to Hinds and Hancock Counties, and he was to have sixty days to raise the regiment. March 1st he accepted the appointment and reported 1,100 men before the close of April. Then arose a conflict with the conscript officers, who held that his sixty days began in January. General Hodge, in July, 1864, said there were in camp only about 150 men, the rest at home.
Gen. Polk, writing to Gen. S. D. Lee, February 15, 1864, authorized Lay to raise as much of a command as possible.
May 24, 1864, Colonel Scott, commanding the district of Southwest Mississippi and East Louisiana, reported that Colonel Lay had not yet succeeded in forming a regiment. His command was listed in the return of June 30, in Scott's command; in August, under the district command of Gen. George B. Hodge, district south of Homochitto. "Lay's Mississippi Cavalry Regiment, Col. Benjamin D. Lay."
In November, 1864, a Federal expedition moved from Baton Rouge to Brookhaven, destroying railroad property and cotton and woolen goods, a tannery and shoe factory, and had a considerable fight with Scott's Cavalry at Liberty November 18. Lieut. E. Brown, of Lay's Cavalry, was among the prisoners taken. A court of inquiry, Gen. Wirt Adams president, found that one cause for the surprise of General Hodge's headquarters at Liberty, was the capture of a Lieutenant and ten unarmed men of Lay's Regiment, on picket duty.
February, 1865, Gen. Wirt Adams asked that there be assigned to his command the companies of Lay's Regiment, "mere skeletons," to be incorporated with some recognized battalion or regiment, there being enough men to probably make three or four companies.
OFFICERS:
Col. Benjamin Dudley Lay
ASSIGNMENTS:
Scott's Cavalry Brigade
SERVICE: ROSTER:
The roster of this regiment contains the names of 869 men.
A, Capt C. A. Hester;
B, Capt Louis Winston;
C, Capt W. D. Sneed;
D, Capt J. t. Williams;
E, Capt E. J. York;
F, Capt P. J. Gibson; raised around Jackson and Hinds, Mississippi. The 1rst of the unit was rasied in the district south of Homochitto Miss area.
HISTORICAL NOTES: