Second and last governor of the provisional Confederate government of the state of Kentucky. Virginia native. Son of Richard Hawes and Clara Walker Hawes. Married to Hetty Morrison Nicholas Hawes on November 13, 1818. Father of James Morrison Hawes, George N. Hawes, Samuel Hawes, Smith Nicholas Hawes, Cary Nicholas Hawes, Clara Hawes, Hettie Hawes, and Mariah J. Hawes. Educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Read law with Charles Humphreys and Robert Wickliffe. Served in the Black Hawk War. Practiced law and farmed in Fayette County, Clark County, and Bourbon County, Kentucky. Owned a ropewalk in Winchester, Kentucky, in partnership with Benjamin Hawes Buckner in 1825. Member of the Whig Party. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from Clark County in 1828, 1829, and 1836. Member of the House of Representatives of the United States from the 7th District of Kentucky from 1837 to 1841. Member of the Democratic Party. Attorney in Bourbon County in 1850. Owned six enslaved persons in Bourbon County in 1850. Attorney in Bourbon County in 1860. Major in the Confederate Commissary Department in October 1861. Appointed auditor of the provisional government in absentia but declined the appointment in Russellville on November 25, 1861. Assumed office as provisional governor of the Kentucky on May 31, 1862, after the death of George W. Johnson. Spent the rest of the war in exile. Second and final governor of the provisional government from October 4, 1862 until the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865. Returned to his law practice and business interests in Bourbon County in 1865.
