A surprising connection has emerged between Joe Biden and Abraham Lincoln, as revealed earlier this month by historian David J. Gerleman in The Washington Post.
President Biden, whose full name is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., is a descendant of Moses J. Robinette. Remarkably, a 22-page document recently discovered by Gerleman in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., contains court-martial records indicating that 160 years ago, Abraham Lincoln granted a pardon to Robinette, Biden's great-great-grandfather.
When the U.S. Civil War broke out in 1861, Robinette was 42 and running a hotel in Virginia. During the war’s initial stages, he faced significant personal losses; his wife, Jane, passed away, and his hotel was destroyed. The following year, Robinette secured a position as a civilian veterinary surgeon with the Union Army, despite lacking formal medical training. His primary duty was to ensure the well-being of the horses and mules tasked with pulling heavy ammunition wagons.
As detailed in the court-martial records, Moses J. Robinette had an altercation with another civilian employee, John J. Alexander, on March 21, 1864, in a Union Army mess tent near Beverly Ford, Virginia. This led to Robinette injuring Alexander with a pocket knife, and he was subsequently arrested and brought to trial. Although Robinette claimed self-defense, he was charged with "conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline" and "assault, with attempt to kill." Robinette was acquitted of the attempted murder charge but found guilty otherwise, resulting in a two-year hard labor sentence in the Dry Tortugas, an archipelago off the coast of Florida.
Outraged at this harsh sentence, three Union officers, John S. Burdett, David L. Smith, and Samuel R. Steel, wrote to President Lincoln, pleading for Robinette’s conviction to be overturned. They emphasized Robinette’s loyalty to the Union and that he had been acting in self-defense against a bigger and stronger man.
Lincoln reviewed the case and pardoned Robinette of any wrongdoing on September 1, 1864, leading to Robinette’s release after roughly a month of imprisonment. Afterwards, Robinette reunited with his family in Maryland, where he worked as a farmer. He died in 1903.
A presidential pardon in the family:
- Moses J. Robinette was the father of George Hamilton Robinette, who was the father of Mary Elizabeth Robinette Biden, who was the mother of Joseph Robinette Biden Sr., who was the father of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the 46th U.S. president.
- Robinette’s pardon was one of roughly 300 issued by Lincoln while serving as U.S. president between 1861 and his assassination in 1865.
- In his trial transcript, Robinette stated 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.”
