Richard Hawes | |
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| 2nd Confederate Governor of Kentucky | |
| In office May 31, 1862 – April 9, 1865 | |
| Preceded by | George W. Johnson |
| Succeeded by | Abolished (end ofCivil War) |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromKentucky's10th district | |
| In office March 4, 1837 – March 3, 1841 | |
| Preceded by | Chilton Allan |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Francis Marshall |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1797-02-06)February 6, 1797 |
| Died | May 25, 1877(1877-05-25) (aged 80) Paris, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Political party | Whig Democratic |
| Spouse | Hetty Morrison Nicholas |
| Relations | Albert Gallatin Hawes (brother) Aylett Hawes (uncle) Aylett Hawes Buckner (cousin) |
| Alma mater | Transylvania University |
| Profession |
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Richard Hawes Jr. (February 6, 1797 – May 25, 1877) was aUnited States representative fromKentucky and the secondConfederate governor of Kentucky. He was part of thepolitically influential Hawes family. His brother, uncle, and cousin also served as U.S. Representatives, and his grandsonHarry B. Hawes was a member of theUnited States Senate. He was a slaveholder.[1]
Hawes began his political career as an ardentWhig and was a close friend of the party's founder,Henry Clay. When the party declined and dissolved in the 1850s, Hawes became aDemocrat, and his relationship with Clay cooled.
At the outbreak of theCivil War, Hawes was a supporter ofKentucky's doctrine ofarmed neutrality. When the Commonwealth's neutrality was breached in September 1861, Hawes fled to Virginia and enlisted as a brigade commissary under Confederate generalHumphrey Marshall. When Kentucky's Confederate government was formed inRussellville, Hawes was offered the position ofstate auditor, but declined. Months later, he was selected to be Confederate governor of the Commonwealth followingGeorge W. Johnson's death at theBattle of Shiloh.
Hawes and the Confederate government traveled withBraxton Bragg'sArmy of Tennessee, and when Bragg invaded Kentucky in October 1862, he capturedFrankfort and held an inauguration ceremony for Hawes. The ceremony was interrupted, however, by forces under Union generalDon Carlos Buell, and the Confederates were driven from the Commonwealth following theBattle of Perryville. Hawes relocated to Virginia, where he conducted a Confederategovernment in exile for Kentucky and continued to lobby PresidentJefferson Davis to attempt another invasion of the state.
At the end of the war, the Confederate government of Kentucky in exile ceased to exist, and Hawes returned to his home inParis, Kentucky. He swore an oath of allegiance to theUnion, and was allowed to return to his law practice. He was electedcounty judge ofBourbon County, a post he held until his death in 1877.
Richard Hawes was born on February 6, 1797, nearBowling Green,Caroline County, Virginia.[2] He was one of eleven children born to Richard and Clara[a] Walker Hawes.[3] The Haweses were a political family; Richard's brother,Albert Gallatin Hawes, uncle,Aylett Hawes, and cousin,Aylett Hawes Buckner, all served in the U.S. House of Representatives.[2] In 1810, the family moved to Kentucky, settling inFayette County, nearLexington.[4] Part of Hawes's early education was obtained through theJessamine County school conducted by Samuel Wilson.[5]
On November 13, 1818, Hawes married Hetty Morrison Nicholas of Lexington.[3] He pursued classical studies atTransylvania University, then studied law underRobert C. Wickliffe.[2][6] Hawes and Wickliffe became law partners upon the former's admission to thebar in 1818.[5] Due to overcrowding of the bar in Lexington, Hawes moved toWinchester in 1824.[5] While there, he became part owner of arope and bagging factory with Benjamin H. Buckner.[5]
Hawes began his political career in 1828 when he was elected as a Whig to representClark County, Kentucky, in theKentucky House of Representatives.[3] As a member of the statemilitia, Hawes saw limited service in theBlack Hawk War in 1832, and returned to his position in the Kentucky House in 1834.[3][7] He was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Representative in 1834, but was elected to represent Henry Clay's "Ashland District" three years later, serving from March 4, 1837, to March 3, 1841.[2][3] He then moved to Paris, Kentucky in 1843 and continued the practice of law.[8]
Hawes was once close friends with Clay, though the friendship between them cooled when Hawes supportedZachary Taylor instead of Clay forpresident in 1848.[9] When the Whig Party dissolved in the 1850s, Hawes became a Democrat, supporting presidential candidatesJames Buchanan in 1856 andJohn C. Breckinridge in 1860.[8]
Though alarmed by the election ofAbraham Lincoln in the election of 1860, Hawes was an opponent of secession, supporting instead the idea of armed neutrality.[8][9] In May 1861, Hawes, Breckinridge, and Kentucky governorBeriah Magoffin represented the Southern Rights viewpoint at a convention to decide Kentucky's course in the Civil War.[9] He attended another such convention in September 1861.[4] Neither convention produced a conclusive decision.[4]
A July 1861 address to the people ofBourbon County, authored by Hawes and other like-minded Democrats, blamedRepublicans for starting the Civil War, denounced the coercion of states to remain in the Union, and warned that the Lincoln administration would fight to end slavery. The address called for an end to the war, recognition of the Confederate States of America as a sovereign nation, and equitable distribution of the national debt and federal property.[9]
When Kentucky's neutrality was breached in September 1861, Hawes fled to Virginia to escape imprisonment by Federal authorities.[4] While there, he enlisted as a brigade commissary under Confederate general Humphrey Marshall and was given the rank ofmajor.[8] Though his ability to obtain supplies for Marshall's brigade was commendable given the difficult conditions, his age (64) and lack of military experience lessened his value to Marshall's unit, and his predilection for jumping the chain of command and communicating directly with Confederate Secretary of WarJudah P. Benjamin put him at odds with Marshall personally.[9][10]
In November 1861, the self-appointed members of the Confederate state sovereignty convention in Russellville, Kentucky appointed Hawes state auditor of the Commonwealth's Confederate government, but he declined in order to continue his military service.[4] However, he wrote President Davis on January 25, 1862, to inform him that he was traveling toBowling Green, Kentucky, at Confederate Governor George W. Johnson's request in order to assist Johnson in administering the state government.[9] He resigned his military commission two days later, but his departure for Bowling Green was delayed when he was stricken withtyphoid fever.[8]
Governor Johnson was killed while participating in theBattle of Shiloh. Following the resolutions of the Russellville Convention, the provisional Confederate government's ten legislative councillors selected Hawes to succeed Johnson as governor. (Under these provisions, the councillors could not select one of their own.)[8] He joined the leaderless and nomadicshadow government, which had been traveling with the Army of Tennessee, inCorinth, Mississippi, and took the oath of office on May 31.[11] The army's leader, General Braxton Bragg, had been considering an invasion of Kentucky.[8] On August 27, Hawes was dispatched toRichmond, Virginia, to favorably recommend this action to President Jefferson Davis, but Davis was non-committal.[8] Bragg andEdmund Kirby Smith proceeded with the invasion nonetheless, while the leaders of Kentucky's Confederate government remained inChattanooga, Tennessee, awaiting Hawes's return.[8] They departed on September 18, and caught up with Bragg and Smith in Lexington, Kentucky on October 2.[8][9]
Bragg, desiring to enforce the Confederate Conscription Act in the Commonwealth, decided to install the provisional government in the recently captured state capital of Frankfort.[9] The ceremony took place on October 4, 1862.[3] Humphrey Marshall gave the opening remarks, then General Bragg introduced Governor Hawes.[12] Hawes delivered a lengthy inaugural address in which he declared, "It is now a truth and a fact that the late Union cannot be restored."[12] He promised to call a convention to provide for a permanent government as soon as such a convention was feasible, and denounced the Union's goal of freeing the slaves.[12] In the celebratory atmosphere of the inauguration ceremony, however, the Confederate forces let their guard down, and were ambushed and forced to retreat by Union general Don Carlos Buell.[3] Hawes later denied ever taking the oath of office, and became a vocal critic of Bragg.[3][4]
Displaced from their home state, the legislative council dispersed to places where they could make a living or be supported by relatives until Governor Hawes called them into session. Scant records show that, on December 30, 1862, Hawes summoned the council, auditor, and treasurer to his location atAthens, Tennessee, for a meeting on January 15, 1863. Hawes unsuccessfully lobbied President Davis to remove Hawes's former superior, Humphrey Marshall, from command. On March 4, he told Davis by letter that "our cause is steadily on the increase" and assured him that another foray into the Commonwealth would produce better results than the first had.[13]
The government's financial woes also continued. Hawes was embarrassed to admit that neither he nor anyone else seemed to know what became of approximately $45,000 that had been sent fromColumbus toMemphis, Tennessee, during the Confederate occupation of Kentucky.[14] Another major blow was Davis's decision not to allow Hawes to spend $1 million that had been secretly appropriated in August 1861 to help Kentucky maintain its neutrality.[8] Davis reasoned that the money could not be spent for its intended purpose, since Kentucky was now a part of the Confederacy.[8]
By 1864, Hawes had joined his sister at the small Virginia settlement of Nelly's Ford.[14] His wife and daughter joined him there.[14] This location was only 100 miles (160 km) from Richmond, allowing Hawes to travel easily to the Confederate capital for audiences with President Davis.[14] Records show that as late as September 16, 1864, Hawes still maintained hope for another military advance into Kentucky.[14] In the summer of 1864, Colonel R. A. Alston of the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry requested Governor Hawes's assistance in investigating crimes allegedly committed by GeneralJohn Hunt Morgan during his unauthorized raid into Kentucky.[9] Hawes never had to act on the request, however, as Morgan was suspended from command on August 10 and killed by Union troops on September 4, 1864.[9]
Hawes remained at Nelly's Ford until May 1865.[10] Finally satisfied that it was safe to return to Kentucky, Hawes arrived in Paris to find his home had been burned by Union troops.[10] Four of Hawes's sons served in the Confederate Army, includingbrigadier generalJames Morrison Hawes; only three sons returned home from the war.[10][15][b] On September 18, 1865, Hawes took an oath of allegiance to the United States, and was allowed to return to his previous career as a lawyer.[9]
In 1866, he was elected county judge of Bourbon County.[3] His most notable ruling in this capacity was to nullify the apprenticeship contracts of theFreedmen's Bureau in Kentucky.[16] Hawes based this decision on the fact that the Bureau's powers extended only to states that had been part of the rebellion, which Kentucky had not.[16] Hawes was also chosen master commissioner of the circuit court in 1866.[3] In 1871, Hawes was mentioned as a possible candidate for governor of Kentucky.[16] In 1876, he helped frame his party's response to the disputedHayes–Tilden presidential election.[16] Hawes died in Paris, Kentucky, on May 25, 1877,[3] and was interred in Paris Cemetery.[2]
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