When Congressman Shoots a Waiter

Philemon T. Herbert was a crooked lawyer, a card shark, frequented brothels, and stood accused of attacking a political rival with a knife. In other words, he fit right in with the rough and tumble environment of California in the early 1850â??s, so much so that the good voters of that state sent him to Congress as a Representative from the vast Mariposa district south of Sacramento. A native Alabaman, Herbert kept up his carousing with his fellow Southrons once heâ??d arrived in Washington, and it was with vicious hangovers that he and his friend William Gardiner stumbled into the dining room of Willardâ??s Hotel at 11 a.m. on the morning of May 8, 1856. Willardâ??s Hotel (in the background below) was the best hotel that D.C. had to offer.