Hugh Nelson was an American politician and U.S. Representative from Virginia. He was the son of Thomas Nelson Jr.

Thomas Nelson Jr. was a Founding Father of the United States, general in the Revolutionary War, member of the Continental Congress, and a Virginia planter. In addition to serving many terms in the Virginia General Assembly, he twice represented Virginia in the Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Fellow Virginia legislators elected him to serve as the commonwealth's governor in 1781, the same year he fought as a brigadier general in the siege of Yorktown, the final battle of the war.