Robert Hayne Barnwell, the second son of Robert Woodward Barnwell and Eliza Barnwell, was born June 21. 1834. He went to College in Columbia, SC, but left with the rest of the student body (except the graduating class) in the famous "Belly Rebellion" in Decent her 1852. This was a protest not only against the practice of farming out the dining arrangements to private caterers who did a poor job, but also against the rule assigning seats at table. Classmate, James Stuart, said he recalled some of his tablemates with "horror." Robert transferred to Harvard and graduated in 1855. He stayed on in their new Scientific Department to study engineering until December 1857. The following summer he went to Germany to continue his education at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic Institute. Rob went over with James Stuart who was going to study art. They chose a packet boat out of Charleston partly because it was less expensive and partly, as Stuart said, because "being salt water boys, we thought we would like to see something of real sailor life and we did." The ship was loaded with cotton bales leaving little room for the two Passengers, and on the second day out encountered a storm which blew them all the way up to the New England coast.
They arrived in LeHavre after twenty-two days at sea. After a day in Paris, they went directly to Karlsruhe. Stuart had intended going on to Munich, but he liked the art school in Karlsruhe and stayed with Rob through the winter. In the spring they travelled together through Germany, into the Black Forest, to Munich and the Bavarian Tyrol. Rob returned to Beaufort in the summer of 1860 while Stuart stayed on until the war broke out. Before separating, they took a trip down the Rhine, through Hanover, Brunswick, and Saxony to Berlin and finally Dresden and Leipsic. For both it was a farewell to a world they were not to see again.