Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work

CHAPTER III

The initiation of Mr. Holcombe into the game of faro was an epoch in his life. He was so fascinated with it, and saw so much money in it, that he now finally and deliberately gave up all attempts at any other business or occupation, and, removing again to Louisville, in partnership with a gambling friend he "opened up a game" or established a house of his own for playing faro in that city. He sent for his family thinking he was settled for life. Alas! how little he knew of that heart of his that knew so little of God. He found out later what St. Augustine has so beautifully said for all humanity: "Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts find no repose till they repose in Thee." It was not long before he had lost all his money and was "dead broke" again. It was about this time and during this residence at Louisville, that, uncontrolled by the grace and power of God, and untouched by the love that can forgive as it hopes to be forgiven, he committed the greatest crime of his life.

A young man was visiting and courting a half-sister of his at Shippingsport, and, under promise of marriage, had deceived her. When Mr. Holcombe found it out, he felt enraged, and thought it his duty to compel him to marry her. But knowing himself so well, and being afraid to trust himself to speak to the young man about it, he asked his two older half-brothers to see him and get the affair settled. They refused to do so. Mr. Holcombe then got a pistol and looked the man up with the deliberate intention of having the affair settled according to his notion of what was right, or killing him. He met him at Shippingsport, near the bank of the canal, and told him who he was – for they scarcely knew each other. Then he reminded him of what had occurred, and said that the only thing to be done was to marry the girl. This the man declined to do, saying: "We are as good as married now." He had scarcely uttered the words when Mr. Holcombe drew his derringer and shot him. When he fell, Mr. Holcombe put his hand under the poor man's neck, raised him up and held him until a doctor could be called. He was touched with a great feeling of pity for his victim, and would have done anything in his power for him. But all his pity and repentance could not bring back the dying man. He went into a neighboring house and washed the blood from his hands, but he could not wash the blood from his conscience. In after years the cry of another murderer, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O, God!" was to burst from his lips, and faith in the blood of a murdered Christ was to bring the answer of peace to his long troubled soul. But alas! alas! he was to add crime to crime and multiply guilt manifold before that time should come.

He was soon arrested and taken to jail, where, after some hours, he was informed that the man was dead. Some time afterward he was tried by a jury and acquitted, though the Commonwealth's Attorney, assisted by paid counsel, did all he could to procure his conviction. But no human sentence or approval of public opinion can quiet a guilty human conscience when awakened by the God whose sole prerogative of executing justice is guarded by His own solemn and awful words, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," saith the Lord. When the conscience is pressed with a great sense of guilt, it seeks relief by the way of contrition and repentance, or it seeks relief by a deeper plunge into sin and guilt, as if the antidote to a poison were a larger dose of poison. There is no middle ground unless it be insanity. Nor did Mr. Holcombe find any middle ground, though he declares that he never allowed himself to think about the killing of Martin Mohler, and could not bear to hear his name. He had to keep very busy in a career of sin, however, to keep from thinking about it, and that is exactly the second alternative of the two described above.

"After this," says Mr. Holcombe, "I continued gambling, traveling around from place to place, and at last I settled down at Nashville and dealt faro there. I took my family with me to Nashville. I gambled there for awhile, and then came back to Louisville, where I opened a game for working men. But when I looked at their hard hands and thought of their suffering families, I could not bear to take their money. Then I turned my steps toward the South and landed in Augusta, Georgia. I went to Augusta in 1869 in connection with a man named Dennis McCarty. We opened there a big game of faro, where I did some of the biggest gambling I ever did in my life. On one occasion I played seven-up with a man and beat him out of five thousand dollars, which broke him up entirely."

Let us now take a peep into his home-life: Mrs. Holcombe says that in Augusta he was in the habit of staying out for several days and nights at a time, a thing which he had never done before. They lived in Augusta something over two years, and during all that time she had not one day of peace. He was more reckless than he had ever been before. She suffered most from his drunkenness and his ungovernable temper. Sometimes he would come into the house in a bad humor and proceed to vent his wrath on her and the furniture; for he was never harsh to his children, but on the contrary, excessively indulgent, especially to his sons. During his outbursts of anger, Mrs. Holcombe always sat perfectly still, not in fear, but in grief; for she knew as little of fear as he. Many a time he has come into the house in a bad humor and proceeded to upset the dining-table, emptying all the food onto the floor and breaking all the dishes. On one occasion he came home angry and found his wife sitting on a sofa in the parlor. He began to complain of her and to find fault with her, and as her silence seemed to provoke him, he began to curse her; and as she sat and wept in silence, he grew worse and worse, using the most dreadful oaths she ever heard. When he had fully vented his passion, he walked out and stood awhile at the front gate as if in a study. Then he walked back into the house where she sat, still weeping, and said, in a mild and gentle tone: "Well, Mary, I was pretty mad awhile ago, wasn't I?" Then he began to apologize and to tell her how sorry he was for having talked to her so harshly, and wound up by petting her. He was at times almost insanely jealous of his wife, and if he saw her even talking with a man, no matter whom, it put him in a rage which ended only when he had vented it in the most abusive language to her.

On another occasion, while they were living in Augusta, an incident occurred which illustrates at once her unexampled devotion and his unexampled depravity. On the night in question she had gone to bed, but not to sleep. About midnight he came staggering in and fell full length on the floor at the foot of the stairway. She tried to help him up, but he was so dead drunk she could not lift him. She left him lying at the foot of the stairway and went back to bed. But, though she was very tired, she could not endure the thought of lying in a comfortable bed while her husband was on the floor. She got up, therefore, and went down stairs again and sat on the floor beside him in her night-dress till morning. Then she left him and went up stairs to dress, that she might be prepared for the duties of the day. When, some time afterward, she came back to where he was lying, he abused and cursed her for leaving him alone, and, before his tirade was ended he was sorry, and tried to smooth it over by saying: "I did not think you would leave me."

Mrs. Holcombe says concerning her life at this period: "I usually walked the floor, after the children were in bed, till past midnight waiting for him to come home. One night in particular, between eleven and twelve o'clock, I heard a shot fired and I heard a man cry out not far from the house. I thought it was Mr. Holcombe, and my agony was almost more than I could bear while waiting for day to come, for I was sure somebody had shot him. But between three and four o'clock In the morning he came in, and his coming brought me great relief." "Then another time," she goes on to say, "I was sitting by the window when an express wagon drove up with a coffin in it. The driver said to me, 'Does this coffin belong here?' I understood him to say, 'Does Mr. Holcombe live here?' I thought it was Mr. Holcombe and that he had been killed and sent home to me in his coffin. The driver repeated his question twice, but I was so paralyzed I could not answer him a word."

From Augusta Mr. Holcombe removed with his family to Atlanta, where he made a good deal of money. Mrs. Holcombe says concerning their stay in Atlanta, "My life at Atlanta was no better than it had been at Augusta. Much of my time was spent in walking the floor and grieving. Often in my loneliness and sorrow my lips would cry out, 'How can I endure this life any longer?' I had not then become a Christian and did not know what I do now about taking troubles and burdens to God. And yet I believe that it was God who comforted my heart more than once when my sorrow was more than I could bear. I cried to Him without knowing Him. All these years I tried to raise my children right, and I taught them to respect their father. I hid his sins from them when I could, and when I could not, I always excused him to them the best I could." But Mr. Holcombe instead of aiding his wife's efforts to bring up their children in the right path, often perversely put obstacles in her way and increased her difficulties, though he did try to conceal his drinking from them, and would never allow his boys to have or handle cards. So in many things he was a combination of contradictions. He could not endure, however, for his wife to punish the children, and especially the boys. On one occasion he came home and the younger son was still crying from the punishment inflicted by his mother for wading in a pond of water with his shoes on. Mr. Holcombe asked him what was the matter, and when he found out, he was so angry he made the boy go and wade in the pond again with his shoes on. And yet Mrs. Holcombe's love for her husband "never wavered," and she loved him "when he was at his worst."

While Mr. Holcombe was living in Atlanta he attended the races in Nashville, and while there, two men came along that had a new thing on cards, and they beat him out of five or six thousand dollars – broke him, in fact. After he was broke, he went to one of the men by the name of Buchanan and said, "I see that you have got a new trick on cards, and as I am well acquainted through the South, if you will give it away to me, we can go together and make money." The man, after some hesitation, agreed to do so. They went in partnership and traveled through the South as far as Key West, Florida, stopping at the principal cities and making money everywhere. At Key West he and his partner had a split and separated. From Key West Mr. Holcombe crossed over to Cuba, and spent some time in Havana. In seeking adventures in that strange city he made some very narrow escapes, and was glad to get away. On landing at New Orleans, though he had a good deal of money, the accumulations of his winnings on his late tour through the South, he got to playing against faro bank and lost all he had. But he fell in with a young man about twenty years of age, from Georgia, on his way to Texas, and became very intimate with him. Finding that this young man had a draft for $1,050, by the most adroit piece of maneuvering he got another man, a third party, to win it from him for himself, and gave this third party $50 for doing it. Then he took charge of the young man in his destitution and distress, paid his bill for a day or two at a hotel in New Orleans, and gave him enough to pay his way on to Texas. The young man departed thinking Mr. Holcombe was one of the kindest men he had ever met. The gentle reader, if he be a young man who thinks himself wise enough to be intimate with strangers, might learn a useful little lesson from this young Georgian's experience as herein detailed.

From New Orleans, Mr. Holcombe went by river to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he met again with his former partner, Buchanan. They made up their differences and went into partnership again, and were successful in winning a good deal of money together. But afterward their fortunes changed and they both lost all they had. This soured Buchanan, who had never cordially liked Holcombe since their quarrel and separation at Key West. Mr. Holcombe himself shall narrate what took place afterward: "During this time we had been sleeping in a room together. Buchanan knew that I had two derringer pistols. He got Phil Spangler to borrow one, and I feel satisfied he had snaked the other. A friend of mine, John Norton, asked me to deal faro bank, and I got broke, and the night that I did, I put the box in the drawer pretty roughly, and made some pretty rough remarks. Buchanan was present, but took no exception to what I said that night. The next morning, however, in the bar-room he began to abuse me, and we abused each other backward and forward until I had backed clear across the street. During this time I had my derringer pistol out in my hand. He had a big stick in his hand and a knife in his bosom. When we got across the street I made this remark, 'Mr. Buchanan, I do not want to kill you,' He was then about ten feet from me, and made a step toward me. I took deliberate aim at his heart and pulled the trigger, but the pistol snapped. He walked away from me then. I ran up to the hotel where Aleck Doran was, knowing that his six-shooter was always in good condition. I borrowed it and started to hunt Buchanan up, and when I found him, he came up to me with his hand out. We made up and have been good friends ever since. After we left there, these parties with whom we had been playing, got to quarreling among themselves about the different games, and the result was that John Norton killed Phil Spangler and another one of the men. And such is the life of the gambler." And such is too often, alas! the death of the gambler.

From Shreveport he went back to Atlanta where his family, consisting now of his wife, two sons and two daughters, had remained. But he could not be contented at any one place. It seemed impossible for him to be quiet, no matter how much money he was making. Indeed, the more he got the more disquieted he seemed, and yet it was his passion to win money. Sometimes he would go to his home with his pockets full of it and would pour it out on the floor and tell the children to take what they wanted. He was so restless when he had won largely that he could not sleep; and his wife says she has known him to get up after having retired late and walk back to the city to his gambling house to find somebody to play with. He seemed to want to lose his money again. In fact, he seemed happier when he was entirely without money than when he had a great deal.

Not contented, then, at Atlanta, he went from there to Beaufort, South Carolina, to gamble with the officers of the navy. He got into a game of poker with some of them and won all the money. Then he was ready to quit and leave the place, but he got into a difficulty with a man there whose diamond pin he had in pawn for money lent him, and though it be at the risk of taxing the reader's patience with these details, yet, in order to show vividly what a gambler's life is, we shall let Mr. Holcombe give his own account of the affair:

"This man was the bully of the place. I had his diamond pin in pawn for seventy-five dollars, and another little fellow owed me eighteen dollars, or something like that, and I wanted him to pay me. Instead of paying me, however, he began to curse and abuse me; and I hit him on the nose, knocked him over and bloodied it, and he was bleeding like everything. He got over into the crowd; and under the excitement of the moment, I drew my pistol and started toward him. This big bully caught me gently by the vest, and asked me quietly to put up my pistol. I did so. Then he said, 'You can't shoot anybody here,' I said 'I do not want to shoot anybody.' I then asked him to turn me loose. He again said 'You can't shoot anybody here.' I then said, 'What is the matter with you? Are we not friends?' And he said 'No,' and made the remark, 'I will take your pistol away from you and beat your brains out.' I struck him and knocked him over on a lounge, but he rose up and came at me, and we had quite a tussle around the room. The others all ran and left the house, and the barkeeper hid.

"When we separated, the big fellow had quite a head on him; was all beaten up. He then went into the other room and sat down, and the barkeeper came in where I was. I was willing to do or say anything to reconcile this man, and I said to the barkeeper that I was sorry of the difficulty, as I liked the man, which was a lie, and a square one, for I hated him from the moment I saw him. When he heard what I said, he came sauntering into the room, and I said to him, 'I am sorry this occurred, but you called me such a name that I was compelled to do as I did. You know that you are a brave man; and if any man had called you such a name, you would have done just as I did.' He called me a liar, and at it we went again. We separated ourselves every time. I got the best of the round. After that he stepped up to the sideboard and got a tumbler; but I looked him in the eye so closely that he could not throw it at me, and he put it down. After a little more conversation, he started to lift up a heavy spittoon of iron. I stepped back a foot or two, drew my pistol, and told him if he did not put that down, I would kill him. He put it down. I then told the barkeeper he must come in there and witness this thing, because I expected to have to kill him. After the barkeeper came in, the man went out, saying, 'You had a gun on me to-night, and I will have one on you to-morrow.' Feeling satisfied if I remained, one of us would have to be killed; and feeling that I did not want to kill him, neither did I want to get killed on a cold collar, I concluded to walk out of the place. I got the barkeeper to promise to ship my trunk to Atlanta, and walked through the swamps to a station fourteen miles away, arriving there some time next day." Other such experiences Mr. Holcombe had enough to fill a volume perhaps, but these are sufficient to give an impression of what a gambler's life is and to show what was the life of that same Steve Holcombe who now for eleven years has been a pattern of Christian usefulness and zeal.

After spending a short time at Atlanta, he went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then again to Louisville, where he opened a faro bank and once more settled down for life, as he thought. At any rate for the first time in his life he thought of saving a little money, and he did so, investing it in some houses in the West End. Poor man! he had wandered nearly enough. He had almost found that rest can not be found, at least in the way he was seeking it, and the time was approaching when he would be prepared to hear of another sort and source of rest. Until he should be prepared, it would be vain to send him the message. To give the truth to some people to-day would be to cast pearls before swine, to give it to them to-morrow may be re-clothing banished princes with due tokens of welcome and of royalty. To have told Steve Holcombe of Christ yet awhile would probably have excited his wonder and disgust; to tell him a little later will be to welcome a long-lost, long-enslaved and perishing child to his Father's house and to all the liberty of the sons of God.

So he thought of saving a little money and of investing in some cottages in the west end of Louisville. And God was thinking, too, and He was thinking thoughts of kindness and of love for the poor wicked outcast. He was more than thinking, He was getting things ready. But the time was not yet. A few more wanderings and the sinning one, foot-sore, heart-sore and weary will be willing to come to the Father's house and rest. Truth and God are always ready, but man is not always ready. "I have many things to say to you, but you can not bear them now."

His income at Louisville at this time was between five and seven thousand dollars a year. He had a large interest in the bank and some nights he would take in hundreds of dollars. But he could not be contented. The roving passion seized him again, and in company with a young man of fine family in Louisville, who had just inherited five thousand dollars, he set out on a circuit of the races. But in Lexington, the very first place they visited, they lost all they had, including the young man's jewelry, watch and diamond pin. They got more money and other partners and started again on the circuit and they made money. At Kalamazoo, Michigan, Mr. Holcombe withdrew from the party, just for the sake of change, just because he was tired of them; and in playing against the faro banks at Kalamazoo he lost all he had again. Then he traveled around to different places playing against faro banks and "catching on" when he could. He visited Fort Wayne, Cleveland, Utica, Saratoga and New York. At New York he was broke and he had become so disgusted with traveling around and so weary of the world that he determined he would go back to Louisville and settle down for life. He did return to Louisville and got an interest in two gambling houses, making for him an income again of five thousand dollars a year.

During all these years his faithful wife, though not professing to be a Christian herself, endeavored in all possible ways to lead her children to become Christians. She taught them to pray the best she could, and sent them to Sunday-school. After her first child was born she gave up those worldly amusements which before she had, to please her husband, participated in with him – a good example for Christian mothers. She was in continual dread lest the children should grow up to follow the father's example. She always tried to conceal from them the fact of his being a gambler. The two daughters, Mamie and Irene, did not, when good-sized girls and going to school, know their father's business. They were asked at school what his occupation was, and could not tell. More than once they asked their mother, but she evaded the question by saying, "He isn't engaged in any work just now," or in some such way. Mrs. Holcombe begged her husband again and again not to continue gambling. She says, "I told him I was willing to live on bread and water, if he would quit it." And she would not lay up any of the money he would give her, nor use any more of it than was necessary for herself and the children, for she felt that it was not rightly gotten. And because she would neither lay it up nor use it lavishly, she had nothing to do but let the children take it to play with and to give away. Under the training of such a mother with such patience, love and faith, it is no great marvel, and yet perhaps it is a great marvel, that Willie, the eldest child, notwithstanding the father's example, grew up to discern good, to desire good and to be good. While he was still a child, when his father came home drunk, the wounded and wondering child would beg him not to drink any more. Mrs. Holcombe says of him further, "When Willie would see his father on the street drinking, I have seen him, when twelve years old, jump off the car, go to his father and beg him with tears to go home with him. And I never saw Mr. Holcombe refuse to go."

In this way the boy grew up with a disgust and horror of drunkenness and drinking, and when in the year 1877 the great temperance movement was rolling over the country and meetings were held everywhere, and in Louisville also, though the boy had never drunk any intoxicating liquor in his life, he signed the pledge. He took his card home with his name signed to it, and when his father saw it, he was very angry about it. And yet, strange to say, on that very evening the father himself attended the meeting; and on the next evening he went again, in company with his wife. During the progress of the meeting he turned to his wife and said, "Mary, shall I go up and sign the pledge?" Concealing her emotions as best she could, lest the show of it might disgust and repel him, she replied, "Yes, Steve, Willie and I would be very glad if you would," and he did so.

Some time after that, Willie asked his father and mother if they would accompany him to the Broadway Baptist church in the city to see him baptized. While witnessing the baptism of his son, Mr. Holcombe made up his mind that he would quit gambling, and as he went out of the church, he said to his wife, "I will never play another card."