The son was carefully educated at Rutland and Castleton Academies in Vermont and he was sent afterwards to Norwich Military Academy in that state on the banks of the Connecticut River, where he was a classmate of other officers who reached distinction in the volunteer service and in the Mexican War. Colonel Robinson taught school in his native state and at Jefferson Academy, New Jersey, and in 1840 he went to Cleveland, Ohio, and taught two years. He prospected in the West and visited Wisconsin, but returned to Cleveland and afterwards enlisted in the Mexican War, and was made Lieutenant in Company G, 3rd Ohio Infantry under Colonel Curtiss of Pea Ridge fame in the Civil War. He was promoted to Captain for distinguished services in Mexico, and after continuing through the war, principally occupied in cavalry skirmishing near the San Juan River, he returned to Ohio.