Isaac Roberts HAWKINS, Congress, TN (1818-1880)

HAWKINS, Isaac Roberts, a Representative from Tennessee; born near Columbia, Maury County, Tenn., May 16, 1818; moved with his parents to Carroll County in 1828; attended the common schools; engaged in agricultural pursuits; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1843 and commenced practice in Huntingdon, Carroll County, Tenn.; served as a lieutenant in the Mexican War; resumed the practice of law; delegate from Tennessee to the peace conference held in Washington, D.C., in 1861 in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; elected to the convention for the consideration of Federal relations; judge of the circuit court in 1862; entered the Union Army as lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, in 1862; captured with his regiment at Union City, Tenn., in 1864 and imprisoned; exchanged in August 1864 and resumed active service, being in command of the Cavalry force in western Kentucky until the close of the Civil War; commissioned by Governor Brownlow as one of the chancellors of Tennessee in July 1865 but declined to qualify; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1868; upon the readmission of Tennessee to representation was elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-ninth Congress; reelected as a Republican to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses and served from July 24, 1866, to March 3, 1871; chairman, Committee on Mileage (Forty-first Congress); died in Huntingdon, Tenn., August 12, 1880; interment in the Hawkins family burial ground near Huntingdon, Tenn.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present