Background
Richard Hawes was born on February 6, 1797, in Caroline County, Virginia. His parents were Richard and Clara Walker Hawes. His father, a member of the Virginia legislature, moved with family to Kentucky in 1810.
300 N Broadway, Lexington, KY 40508, United States
Richard Hawes studied at Transylvania University.
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Richard Hawes was born on February 6, 1797, in Caroline County, Virginia. His parents were Richard and Clara Walker Hawes. His father, a member of the Virginia legislature, moved with family to Kentucky in 1810.
Richard Hawes attended Jessamine County school conducted by Samuel Wilson. He studied at Transylvania University. Richard also read law under Robert C. Wickliffe.
Richard Hawes was admitted to the bar in 1818. That same year, he became a law partner of Wickliffe. In 1824 Hawes came to Winchester where he resided until 1843.
While a practicing attorney there, Hawes began a long political career. He was elected to the Kentucky General Assembly in 1828, 1829 and 1836. In 1838 he was elected to Congress where he served for four years representing Henry Clay's "Ashland district." He also served in the Black Hawk War of 1832.
Haws and partner Benjamin H. Buckner owned and operated the rope walk and bagging factory in Winchester that had been established by David Dodge. Hawes lived in a house on the property until about 1833 when he sold out to Buckner.
In 1843, Richard Hawes moved his law practice to Paris. He and Beriah Magoffin were Southern Rights representatives to a commission appointed to decide the state's position on the war and secession. Hawes advocated for peace based upon recognition of the independence for the Southern Confederacy. When Kentucky's neutrality ended in September 1861, Hawes fled to the Confederate lines in Tennessee. He was appointed a commissary officer for General Humphrey Marshall's command in eastern Kentucky. While recovering from typhoid fever in April 1862, Richard learned he had been elected Kentucky's second Confederate Governor by the Provisional Government following the death of George W. Johnson.
During the Kentucky invasion in the fall of 1862, Hawes followed General Braxton Bragg's army to Frankfort. The Union government had fled and Bragg installed the new governor in the capital. After an elaborate ceremony at the Capitol, the official party retired to dinner. While eating Bragg received a note that federal forces were approaching the town. Union shelling forced Hawes to abandon Frankfort and after Bragg's defeat at Perryville he had to withdraw with the army to Tennessee. Hawes and his absentee government accomplished little from then until the war's end.
When the Confederacy collapsed in the spring of 1865, the Provisional Government vanished, and Hawes hurried back to Bourbon County to resume his law practice. The community, apparently harboring little animosity, elected Hawes county judge in 1866 and re-elected him in 1870 and 1974.
Richard Hawes joined the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1828 as a member of the Whig Party and then served in Congress, again as a Whig, from 1837 to 1841. After the dissolution of the Whig Party in the 1850s, Hawes became a Democrat and supported John C. Breckinridge in the presidential election of 1860.
While Hawes had pro-southern views and favored recognition of the Confederacy, he personally opposed secession for Kentucky, instead favoring armed neutrality for the state at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Richard Hawes married Hettie Morrison Nicholas on 13 November 1818. They had four children: James Morrison Hawes, Clara N. Hawes, Cary Nicholas Hawes, Smith Nicholas Hawes. His son, James M. Hawes, was a Confederate general.