In 1847 he raised a company (Company F, 13th U.S. Infantry) for service in the Mexican War, drilling his men on the Athens public square twice a day. On May 29th of that year the Company left for Mexico and returned to Athens in the following year. On 1 August 1861, Higgins Company of Confederate Bricks was sworn into the Confederate States Army. It became Company A of the 40th Tennessee Infantry and later Company B of the 54th Alabama Infantry. Higgins was apparently captured at Island Ten of the Mississippi River, for in a letter written to a cousin on 16 October 1872, he stated that he had been imprisoned at Johnson's Island, and it is known that the members of the 54th Alabama were captured at Island Ten. The inscription on Higgins Tombstone reads Gen. H.H. Higgins, and John Tanner road in 1876 that Higgins was a gallant soldier in the Confederate Service and was promoted for meritorious conduct to Brigadier General. He was commission Brigadier General of the state militia during the course of the war. Hiram Higgins 16 May 1802 - 12 May 1874 was the son of William B. and Catherine Higgins Higgins who were married at Mt. Sterling, Montgomery County, KY in 1799. Catherine died when Hiram Higgins was four years of age, and William Higgins then married Nancy Buchanan, who proved to be an excellent step-mother, and Hiram stated that he would not have changed her for any woman on this green earth. It is possible that William Higgins came to Limestone County with the Lane family, for the two families were intermarried in KY. William was in Limestone County by 1818 for in that year, according to the history of Dr. Thomas Stith Malone, the father of our distinguished architect Col. H.H. Higgins, built a two story edifice in Cottonport containing 400,000 brick, the first brick edifice in the country, and the next year 1819 one in Mooresville. William Higgins learned the brick laying and plastering trade from his English brother-in-law James Hart. The love of building was inherited by Hiram Higgins, and he is credited with the design of many of the most distinguished buildings in the town of Athens. It is possible that he studied the architectural handbooks while he was in school in KY, for it required more than mere brick laying skill to erect such a Federal gem as the Vining-Vasser-Lovvorn house, for instance. When Joseph Wood offered his house for sale in 1836, he stated that it was built by Hiram Higgins. Higgins designed the Limestone County Courthouse, completed in 1835; and subsequently those at Moulton, AL, and Pontotoc, MS. He designed Founders Hall and the facade on the Beaty-Mason house, and it is also believed that he erected the Sloss-Pettus and the Donnell houses. Just when Hiram Higgins built his own house is a matter of conjecture, but it was probably about 1850, since John Tanner stated that Higgins had just improved his home, when he died in 1874. There is evidence of an old brick yard across the street from the site of the Higgins house, and it is possible that he made the brick for several structures on that location.