Joe Biden’s paternal great-great grandfather got a pardon from Abraham Lincoln 160 years ago, new records reveal
Abraham Lincoln didn’t just free the slaves and preserve the Union.
America’s 16th (and arguably greatest-ever) president also pardoned the current chief executive’s paternal great-great-grandfather after he was sentenced to hard labor at a military prison, newly unearthed documents show.
President Biden’s ancestor, Moses Robinette, was put in the dock after he came to blows with one John Alexander, a fellow civilian employee of the Union Army, on March 21, 1864, according to records found by the Washington Post.
Alexander, a brigade wagon master, was left bloodied by wounds that came from Robinette’s pocket knife and the presidential forebear was hauled away by camp watchmen.
Robinette, whose legacy lives on in the 46th president’s middle name, had been hired by the Army to work as a veterinary surgeon sometime in 1862 or 1863, according to the documents which were dug up at the National Archives in Washington.
The confrontation with Alexander apparently began when the latter overheard Robinette disparaging him to a female cook.
Robinette faced a military trial in April 1864 on charges that included intoxication, inciting “a dangerous quarrel” and assault with “attempt to kill.”
Witnesses differed on the question of whether either man had been drinking before the fight, with some describing Robinette as “full of fun, always lively and joking.”
“Whatever I have done was done in self-defense, that I had no malice towards Mr. Alexander before or since,” Robinette testified in his defense. “He grabbed me and possibly might have injured me seriously had I not resorted to the means that I did.”
Ultimately, Robinette was found guilty on all counts except the “intent to kill” charge. He was sentenced to two years’ incarceration with hard labor and shipped off to Fort Jefferson, Fla., on the remote Dry Tortugas islands.
Three officers who knew Robinette appealed to Lincoln for mercy, saying the sentence was overly harsh for “defending himself and cutting with a Penknife a Teamster much his superior in strength and Size, all under the impulse of the excitement of the moment.”
After the clemency plea was endorsed by Sen. Waitman Willey of West Virginia, and a report and the trial transcripts sent to the White House, the Great Emancipator made his decision.
“Pardon for unexecuted part of punishment. A. Lincoln. Sep. 1. 1864.”
After Robinette’s release, he returned to his home in Maryland and took up farming, dying in 1903, nearly four decades before the future president was born.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
