Documents reveal that Abraham Lincoln pardoned Biden's ancestor during Civil War: Report
When Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. furnished the Oval Office after stepping into the presidency, he included a bust and a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
On the last President's Day of Biden's current term — in times when the country is perhaps its most fractious since the 1860s — documents from the National Archive revealed that Lincoln pardoned a Union army civilian employee named Moses J. Robinette, Biden's great-great-grandfather.
The Washington Post published a report by historian David J. Gerleman Monday, detailing the brawl that saw Robinette jailed and the effort to free him.
In the report, Gerleman said that the documents held, "a story that has waited 160 years to be told."
Biden's great-great-grandfather charged with attempted murder
Robinette, a hotelier in Virgina before the Civil War, was hired by the Union as a veterinary surgeon in either late 1862 or early 1863 and assigned to the Army of the Potomac’s reserve artillery, according to the Post.
On the evening of March 21, 1864, a fight broke out in the camp between Robinette and fellow civilian employee John J. Alexander, when Alexander overheard Robinette say something about him to a cook, the documents say.
Robinette cut Alexander with a pocketknife multiple times, according to the documents. During the court marshal proceedings Robinette argued his actions were in self-defense saying Alexander, "possibly might have injured me seriously had I not resorted to the means I did."
Robinette's charges specified that he was intoxicated and had incited, "a dangerous quarrel," according to the Post. As there was a weapon involved, Robinette was charged with "attempt to kill."
Robinette, 42, was convicted on all charges except "attempt to kill" and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.
Lincoln pardons Biden's ancestor
Three months after the trial, Robinette was sent to Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortuga Islands in Florida, according to the Post.
Around the time Robinette arrived at the fort, three army officers wrote a letter in an attempt to overturn the conviction.
John S. Burdett, David L. Smith and Samuel R. Steel argued that Robinette's sentence was excessive for a man who 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."
The letter was sent to Senator Waitman T. Willey of West Virginia who endorsed the appeal. Lincoln's private secretary ordered a review of the case which arrived on Lincoln's desk in late August, according to the Post.
The then-President rendered his judgment: "Pardon for unexecuted part of punishment. A. Lincoln. Sep. 1. 1864."
After a month in Florida, Robinette returned to Maryland, where his family fled after the outbreak of the war. Moses J. Robinette died in 1903, according to the Larimer County Genealogical Society.
President Biden inherited the Robinette middle-name from his father who inherited it from George Hamilton Robinette, according to the society.
USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for comment and did not receive an immediate response.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lincoln pardoned Biden's ancestor after Civil War fight, Post reports
