The Surprising Story Behind Joe Biden's Ancestor Being Pardoned by President Abraham Lincoln

In an unexpected historical connection, a recently discovered 22-page transcript has shed light on how President Abraham Lincoln pardoned Joe Biden's great-great-grandfather. The documents, found in the U.S. National Archives, detailed a Civil War-era brawl involving Moses J. Robinette, Biden's paternal forebear, and historian David J. Gerleman unearthed this fascinating link between the two presidents. Gerleman wrote in the Washington Post that the transcript was a "slender sheaf of 22 well-preserved pages of his trial transcript, unobtrusively squeezed among many hundreds of other routine court-martial cases in the National Archives, reveals the hidden link between the two men -- and between two presidents across the centuries."

The incident in question occurred on March 21, 1864, at the Army of the Potomac's winter camp near Beverly Ford, Virginia. Robinette, who worked as an army veterinary surgeon, got into an altercation with John J. Alexander, a brigade wagon master, and the fight escalated when Alexander overheard Robinette speaking about him to a female cook. According to the court martial records, Robinette drew a knife during the scuffle, leaving Alexander with several cuts. 

As a result, Robinette faced serious charges, including attempted murder. While he wasn't convicted of attempted murder, he was found guilty on other charges and sentenced to two years of hard labor. Robinette maintained that he acted in self-defense. He argued that Alexander 'possibly might have injured me seriously had I not resorted to the means I did.' Despite his plea, military judges convicted him and sent him to prison on the Dry Tortugas island off Florida's coast. 

Later, however, the story took an unexpected turn when three army officers who knew Robinette petitioned President Lincoln to overturn the conviction. They wrote that the sentence was unduly 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," as per The Guardian. 

This appeal made its way through various channels, including a West Virginia senator who described Robinette's punishment as a 'hard sentence on the case as stated.' Eventually, it reached Lincoln's desk. On September 1, 1864, just seven months before his assassination, Lincoln agreed to pardon Robinette. The president signed the document, stating it was a pardon for 'unexecuted part of punishment' and simply signed it "A. Lincoln. Sep. 1. 1864."

This act of clemency was one of the 343 that Lincoln issued during his presidency. It allowed Robinette to return to his family in Maryland and resume farming. Gerleman notes the significance of this discovery: "Those few pages not only fill in an unknown piece of Biden family history, but also serve as a reminder of just how many Civil War stories have yet to be told." Interestingly, when Robinette died in 1903, his brief obituary made no mention of the court martial or his connection to Lincoln. It simply eulogized him as a 'man of education and gentlemanly attainments.'