Richard Hawes (
February 6,
1797 –
May 25,
1877) was a
United States Representative from
Kentucky and the second
Confederate Governor of Kentucky. He was part of an influential political family, with a brother, uncle, and cousin who also served as U.S. Representatives. He began his political career as an ardent
Whig and was a close friend of the party's founder,
Henry Clay, joining the
Democrats when the party declined. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hawes was a supporter of
Kentucky's doctrine of armed neutrality. fleeing to Virginia in September 1861 when that neutrality was breached. There he enlisted as a brigade commissary under Confederate general
Humphrey Marshall. When Kentucky's Confederate government was formed in
Russellville, Hawes was elected Confederate governor of the state when his predecessor
George W. Johnson died at the
Battle of Shiloh. On the arrival in Kentucky of forces under Union general
Don Carlos Buell, the Confederates were driven from Kentucky following the
Battle of Perryville. Hawes relocated to Virginia, where he continued to lobby President
Jefferson Davis to attempt another invasion of Kentucky. After the war ended, the Confederate government of Kentucky collapsed, and Hawes returned to his home in
Paris, Kentucky, swore an oath of allegiance to the Union, and returned to his law practice. He was elected
county judge of
Bourbon County, a post he held until his death in 1877.
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