President Abraham Lincoln was known for being a gracious man who was willing to give people the benefit of the doubt as he often offered grace and mercy to allies and adversaries alike. In newly discovered document’s, the 16th President of the United States reportedly pardoned the great-great-grandfather of Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States, according to court-martial records contained in the National Archives that were recently brought to light.
Biden’s relative in the incident, Moses J. Robinette, was identified by The Washington Post as the president’s great-great-grandfather. Despite a lack of formal medical training, he was hired as a civilian veterinary surgeon by the U.S. Army Quartermaster’s Department during the Civil War in late 1862 or early 1863.
On March 12, 1864, Robinette got into a skirmish with another Union Army civilian employee while they were camped along the Rappahannock River near Beverly Ford, Virginia, as the Civil War remained ongoing, the news outlet reported, citing National Archive documents.
The other man involved in the fight with Robinette was identified as John J. Alexander. He was left bleeding from knife wounds before the fight was broken up. Robinette was subsequently charged with attempted murder.
At the conclusion of his trial about a month later, Robinette said “that whatever I have done was done in self defence, that I had no malice towards Mr. Alexander before or since. He grabbed me and possibly might have injured me seriously had I not resorted to the means that I did.”
However, the military judges were unconvinced and they rendered a unanimous verdict: guilty on all counts with the exception of “attempt to kill.”
Hence, Robinette received a sentence of two years of hard labor. He was incarcerated at Fort Jefferson on a remote island near Florida.
The fight caused “an unexpected intersection in the histories of two American presidents, Lincoln and Biden — a story that has waited 160 years to be told,” The Post noted.
Three Army officers who were Robinette’s friends petitioned Lincoln directly to overturn the sentence. In the condemned man’s defense, the officers believed the punishment was too harsh since he was “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,” according to the archives.
The men pleaded with Lincoln by outlining Robinette’s allegiance to the Union, and had opposed “traitors and their schemes to destroy the government.”
“Think of his motherless Daughters and sons at home! … [Praying for] your interposition in behalf of the unfortunate Father … and distressed family of loved Children, Union Daughters & Union Sons,” they added.
The petition to pardon Robinette first passed through the office of Sen. Waitman T. Willey of West Virginia. He endorsed the request and sent it along to the White House. Once Lincoln provided a presidential review of the matter, he agreed and subsequently pardoned Robinette.
“Pardon for unexecuted part of punishment. A. Lincoln. Sep. 1. 1864,” Lincoln wrote at the time, The Post noted. Robinette died in 1903 at the approximate age of 84.
Fox News Digital sought comment from the White House to see if Biden was aware of the family history, but the president has not yet responded to questions.
