The station was involved in the Baltimore riot of 1861, as Massachusetts state militia troops bound for Washington were being pulled in several connecting horse cars and later marching to the B&O Camden Station, ten blocks west and were attacked by an angry mob of Southern and Confederate sympathizers, with a large number of civilians and four soldiers killed and many people wounded in the ensuing melee. On Friday, April 19, 1861, Baltimore Southern sympathizers attacked the passing 6th Massachusetts infantry regiment of the state militia and the "Washington Brigade" of Philadelphia from the Pennsylvania state militia. Both units were heading to Washington to reinforce defenses in response to the requests for troops in his proclamation declaring the existence of an insurrection by President Lincoln after the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in South Carolina by newly organized Confederate States military forces a few days earlier.