[1] Following the muster out and return home of the 125th PA, the Gettysburg Campaign sent cavalry under Confederate General John D. Imboden to threaten vital railroad resources at Altoona and iron production facilities in the Juniata River watershed; in response, Emergency Militia was organized by Colonel Higgins and minimized this northwestern incursion.

Growing up in a rugged, mountainous region of the state, and coming from an ancestry of "hardy stock", Higgins learned early many of the characteristics of toughness, and independence.

[3] At the outbreak of the war in 1861, he was at Portage Iron Works at Duncansville, PA, and promptly responded to the first call for troops by Governor Curtin, who telegraphed him to come to Harrisburg at once.

At the Battle of Dranesville, December 20, 1861, he commanded the five companies which led Union forces into the fight: At the opening of the engagement, the cavalry was ordered to push forward, and compel the enemy to unmask his position.

Although primarily agricultural, the broad region between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh held industrial assets of strategic value and fell prey to a clear and present danger.

During June, 1863, his Brigade had destroyed a half dozen bridges, rolling stock, depots, water tanks, and several blockhouses of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Martinsburg, WV, and Cumberland, MD.

It had also cut the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in two places in Maryland and, within a short time after entering Pennsylvania, had become entirely mounted by benefit of the plunder of local horses.

Once Imoben's Brigade was in Pennsylvania, it was intended primarily to act as a screen and to secure needed supplies for General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

[8] While his men hastily constructed makeshift forts in the mountain gaps, Higgins coordinated defense of the region with a fragment of General Robert H. Milroy's defeated Eight Corps, Second Division, who had retreated to Bloody Run after the Second Battle of Winchester.

His command was the Second Brigade, Second Division, Department of West Virginia, with three field batteries, one fort, and 3,000 or 4,000 troops, covering Hancock, MD, to Piedmont, WV, with headquarters at New Creek.