President Joe Bidenthe great-great-grandfather of received a pardon from President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, according to the Washington Post.
Biden’s paternal great-great-grandfather, Moses Johnson Robinette, was convicted of stabbing a fellow Union Army officer, according to the Post. reported. Robinette allegedly stabbed John J. Alexander, a civilian brigade wagon leader, after being confronted for allegedly making an inappropriate comment about a cook in the slum, and was later pardoned by Lincoln.
The assault took place on March 21, 1864, at a Union Army camp in Beverley Ford, Virginia, along the banks of the Rappahannock River, the Post reported. Robinette was a veterinarian in the Quartermaster Department of the U.S. Army, responsible for the care of the military horses and mules that pulled the artillery carts, although he had no formal training as a doctor or veterinarian.
When Joe Biden was born, he was closer to Lincoln’s assassination than his second presidential campaign. pic.twitter.com/VP2AGDJS5r
– Joshua Reed Eakle (@JoshEakle) February 18, 2024
“(W)everything I did was in self-defense, and I had no malice towards Mr. Alexander before or since. He grabbed me and could have seriously injured me if I hadn’t resorted to the means I used,” Robinette said during his military court-martial, the Post reported. Robinette was charged, among other things , attempted murder and violations of good order and military discipline.
The court martial unanimously found Robinette guilty on all counts except attempted murder, the Post reported. Three months later, he began his two-year sentence of hard labor on Dry Tortugas Island, near Key West, Florida, a place described at the time as “American Siberia.”
Shortly after his arrival, three Union Army officers wrote to request Lincoln’s clemency for Robinette, the post office reported. They claimed that he “defended himself and cut down a Teamster far superior in strength and size, all in the excitement of the moment,” while emphasizing his loyalty to the union cause.
Robinette was “ardent and influential…in his opposition to traitors and their plans to destroy the government,” the three officers said. “Think of his orphaned daughters and sons at home! … (Praying for) your interposition on behalf of the unfortunate Father… and the distressed family of the beloved children, the Daughters of the Union and the Sons of the Union.
Robinette’s cause was also supported by Republican Senator Waitman T. Willey of West Virginia, who recommended that Lincoln be pardoned.
“Sorry for the unfulfilled part of the punishment. A.Lincoln. September 1, 1864,” Lincoln wrote after receiving a report from U.S. Army Judge Advocate General John Holt on the matter. The War Department then issued Special Order 296, which released Robinette from prison after just over a month of incarceration.
Robinette had previously managed a hotel in Grafton, Virginia, near a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station, the hotel having been destroyed during the war. Civil war, the Post reported. He returned to Allegany County, Maryland, where his family had fled. from Virginiaafter being released from prison and dying in 1903.
Robinette’s granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth Robinette, was the mother of Joseph Robinette Biden Sr., Biden’s father.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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