Robert William Hughes  Robert William Hughes (January 16, 1821 – December 10, 1901) was a Virginia newspaper editor, attorney and a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Born on January 16, 1821, at Muddy Creek Plantation in Powhatan County, Virginia, Hughes was of an old Virginia family, whose ancestors came to the area of Powhatan County before 1700, when it was still Goochland County. He attended Caldwell Institute in Greensboro, North Carolina, then studied law in Fincastle, Virginia, and ultimately read law in 1846. He entered private practice in Richmond, Virginia from 1846 to 1853. He was editor of the "Richmond Examiner" from 1853 to 1857. He was editor of the "Washington Union" in Washington, D.C. from 1857 to 1861. He was again editor of the "Richmond Examiner" from 1861 to 1865. He was editor of the "Richmond Republic" from 1865 to 1866. He resumed private practice in Virginia from 1866 to 1869. He was editor of the "Richmond State Journal" from 1869 to 1870. He resumed private practice in Abingdon, Virginia from 1870 to 1871. He had some affiliation with some predecessors of the Norfolk and Western Railway. He was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 1871 to 1873. In connection with the statewide elections of 1855, Hughes editorialized against the Know Nothing movement in Virginia, pointing out that Yankees and abolitionists, not immigrants and Roman Catholics, were the true threats to the Southern way of life. "Why are Northern Abolitionists and Know Nothings persecuting and proscribing foreigners and Catholics?" he wrote. "It is because they have always refused to join with them in their outcry against slavery and the South." In 1857, Hughes left Richmond at the invitation of President James Buchanan to edit the Democratic newspaper, the Washington Union. His papers at the College of William & Mary include, among other things, a receipt for the purchase of two slaves in 1862. Hughes favored secession but was critical of the administration of Jefferson Davis. After the War, Hughes became "one of the first prominent Virginians to turn Republican during the Reconstruction period." Earlier, he "was an extreme secessionist, but after the war he became a moderate Republican and a favorite of President Grant, causing many of his old friends to consider him 'worse than a carpetbagger' and a 'Judas.'"