The first men to die in the American Civil War fell on this day, 150 years ago, on Pratt Street in Baltimore. Troops en route to Washington were confronted downtown by rioters, and the fighting cost four federal soldiers and 12 civilians their lives.

The soldiers were answering President Lincoln’s call to defend the capital from the Confederates, who had achieved the bloodless takeover of Fort Sumter just days before. The men of the Sixth Massachusetts had left Boston Common to cheers and band music. In Baltimore, it was catcalls and a hail of paving stones and bricks. Trying to change rail lines at the inner harbor, the soldiers found their way blocked by Baltimore’s “rowdies,” as President Lincoln called them. More kept arriving, the disturbance mounted and, when nervous soldiers opened fire, it unleashed the mob.