Richard Hawes (1797–1877) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and the second Confederate Governor of Kentucky. Originally a Whig, Hawes became a Democrat following the dissolution of the Whig party in the 1850s. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Hawes was a supporter of Kentucky's doctrine of armed neutrality. When the Commonwealth's neutrality was breached in September 1861, Hawes fled to Virginia and enlisted as a brigade commissary under Confederate general Humphrey Marshall. He was elected Confederate governor of the Commonwealth following the late George W. Johnson's death at the Battle of Shiloh. Hawes and the Confederate government traveled with Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, and when Bragg invaded Kentucky in October 1862, he captured Frankfort and held an inauguration ceremony for Hawes. The ceremony was interrupted, however, by forces under Union general Don Carlos Buell, and the Confederates were driven from the Commonwealth following the Battle of Perryville. Hawes relocated to Virginia, where he continued to lobby President Jefferson Davis to attempt another invasion of Kentucky. Following the war, he returned to his home in Paris, Kentucky, swore an oath of allegiance to the Union, and was allowed to return to his law practice.
