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

TESTIMONIALS

I was born in Louisville in 1842; was educated in New York and Virginia; served in General Lee's army during the war on the staff of my uncle, General Edward Johnson. The only commission I received was received on the third day of July, 1863, at the battle of Gettysburg.

My first drinking commenced in Georgia, where I was planting rice with General Gordon. That was in 1867. I did not drink during the war at all except that I might have taken a drink occasionally when I met with friends. My uncle would not permit liquor about his headquarters. On leaving Georgia, I went to New York, and went into business. I acquired quite a reputation there, and had a good income. My periodical drinking continued, however, and each year became greater and greater. Nothing was said about it for seven years and a half. I would not drink around my place of business. When I felt the spell coming on me, I would quit and go off, and be gone seven or eight days, and be back to business again when I had straightened up, and nothing was said about it; but the thing will increase on a man, and, of course, with each succeeding year the habit became stronger, and the intervals shorter.

I conceived the idea that a change of climate would do me good. Visits to the mountains seemed to benefit me, and I thought I would go West, and the change would effect a cure. I went to Colorado, made friends there, went into business, and was successful. I was married to my wife in Denver, Colorado. I believed as my wife did, that my drinking was a matter under my control. I had been leading an aimless life, with no family ties; and after I was married, I thought a strong effort on my part would stop it. I wanted to get back to salt water again, and have everything in my favor; and the next morning after we were married, I started for California. I was very successful there. I was in a short time made special agent of the California Electric Light Company, at a salary of three thousand dollars a year. They wanted to make a contract with me for five years, giving me three thousand dollars a year, if I would bind myself not to drink during the five years. I found it was not such an easy thing to quit drinking. I consulted physicians there. There was a doctor in Oakland who said he had a specific for drunkenness; and he gave it to me. The result was that when I wanted a drink, I threw the medicine away and got the drink. What I always wanted, and tried to get, was something to take away the appetite for drink. There were times when I had no more desire for drink than you or any other man; but when it seized me, it seized me in an uncontrollable way, and I would drink for the deliberate purpose of making myself sick and getting over it as quick as possible. I knew it had to be gone through with, and I drank until I made myself sick.

I never attended to business when I drank liquor. I never mixed up my business affairs with my drinking. Everybody I had anything to do with knew I was thoroughly reliable. I never lied about being drunk. I never said I was sick or had the cholera infantum or anything of that sort. Everybody who employed me knew as much about it as I did.

When my little boy was born, I felt a sacred duty was imposed upon me; and I tried to encourage my ideas of morality. I had always been a moral man, and, although an infidel, had never sought to break down the religious opinions of any one, because I had nothing to give them instead. My rationalism satisfied me. It was a belief, an opinion, with which I was willing to face my Maker, because I believed I was right. I believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, but I did not believe that the great Ruler of the universe thought enough of us insignificant human beings to interest Himself in our affairs. I did not believe in the Christians' God. There in Virginia I had been surrounded by members of the church. Everybody was either a Baptist, a Methodist, or a member of some other denomination; drunkards and saloon-keepers and all belonged to the church. They could do wrong and afterward go straight to church. That kind of religion disgusted me, and that kind of religion confirmed my skepticism. I wanted to get away and I even planned to go to Australia. After my little boy was born, I stayed sober for six months, and then I commenced drinking again. I did not conceal the truth from myself. I said, "You are false to everything that is manly; you are a disgrace to yourself." I decided to go back to Virginia (my wife had never been there) and settle up a lawsuit I had pending in the courts.

But after a short stay in Virginia I had an offer to return to New York and go to work, and went to New York; and after I had been there a month, I received a dispatch stating that a compromise had been agreed upon without consulting me at all. I went back to Richmond and rejected the compromise.

A decision was made in my favor, but the case was taken to the Court of Appeals. I had used up everything I had in litigation; and when, at last, I got a telegram that the Court of Appeals had reversed the case, and we had lost everything, it just broke me down. It took me more than a month to realize that it was a fact – I could not get it into my head; and it broke me down completely. I loved my wife and I loved my child, and was troubled about them, and for the two years I was fighting these Virginia gentlemen I was in a state of high excitement. I had nothing to do except to worry, and I drank more than ever in my life. I said, "My God! it is awful. I have lost everything. I know I am a drunkard; it is no use denying it, because the appetite is on me all the time." And many a time I threw myself down in the woods and sobbed aloud if Fate would have mercy on me. I had given up all hope. I thought the good fortune which had followed me all my life would never return. I had sent my wife off; so I had lost her, too. She went to her sister's, in Ohio; and I arranged that my mother should remain at the old place. I wrote to a cousin of mine whom I had not met since the war. He used, frequently, to come to our home, a delightful and healthful place, thirteen miles from Richmond. I thought I would write him that I desired to get out of Virginia, and had not the means, and would make Louisville my objective point. So I wrote him, but received no reply. I wrote to another man, stating the circumstances – that I wanted to get out of Virginia and go to work; but I received no answer from him; and I came to the conclusion if I wanted to get out of Virginia I would have to walk. I had secured my wife and child, and as for myself it little mattered what befell me or how I fared.

I was walking through the woods one day and saw a man getting out railroad ties. He told me of a place near by, called the "Lost Land." A year before that, my uncle's executor gave me a deed that was taken from the old house at my oldest uncle's death. It was for a little slip of land – an avenue – that my grandfather had bought in 1815. Well, I thought nothing of it. I told the old negro woman that when everything was settled up, I was going to give her that land; and I put the deed away with other papers and forgot all about it. When I was worrying about the means, and making efforts to get the means to get out of Virginia, this man, who was hewing in the woods, told me about the little piece of woodland that had so much sill timber on it, and he spoke of it as the "Lost Land," and his speaking of the "Lost Land" reminded me of this deed, and I hurried home, found the deed, and saw that it located the land at about where he mentioned. I went to the County Surveyor, who had succeeded his father and grandfather in the office, and we found that the property of which this formed a part had been sold in large lots, and it was there between the lines of the other property, unclaimed by any one, and for seventy-three years had escaped taxation, because the deed conveying it had never been recorded in the county books, and it was supposed by the county officials that all of the original tract had been divided off in the larger subdivisions. We found it, ran the lines around it, and I sold ten acres for one hundred dollars – enough to pay a grocery bill, buy me a suit of clothes and land me in Louisville.

I had loved the old place – loved it all my life, because I had spent many days there when a happy, careless boy. My mother was born there, my grandmother and my great-grandfather lie buried there. It was bought in 1782 by my great-grandfather, who was not only a gentleman but a scholar. He graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Edinburgh, and afterward spent seven years in Europe. I was very much attached to the old place, and on leaving it I drank to deaden the pain.

I came here to Louisville, and I drank after I got here to keep from thinking. I tell you things looked blue, and I tell you the fact, the liquor I drank every day made me feel worse and worse, and my brain was affected from the excitement I had passed through. I found myself in a second or third-class hotel which stood nearly on the spot where I was born. I lay in my room for three days. I came to the conclusion there was no use kicking; the end was at hand. Fate had brought me back here, where I was born, to die. I even said it to myself, "Destiny has brought you back here, to the city where you were born, to die; and to die by your own hands. You have no respect for yourself, nor have others respect for you. You know by living you will bring further disgrace upon the wife and child you love so well. If you will commit suicide people will say, 'He was an unfortunate man, but a brave one; his only fault was his drinking.'" I tried to shut out all thoughts of my wife and child, but I could not. I said to myself, "I was born here; I have not outraged the law; I have done nothing dishonorable; nothing why any man related to me should shun me. But I have lost everything; I am accursed; I am alone here. My wife's people know I am here, but do not communicate with me. And they tell me there is a God." A man came to my room in the hotel and said they wanted the room. "You say you have no money and no friends, so we can not keep you here any longer. You must give us the room." Under these circumstances I was coming nearer and nearer the final determination to commit suicide when a man, a stranger, came into my room who was himself a drunkard. I told him my condition and my determination. He said, "Wait till I send that man Holcombe down to see you. Maybe he can help you." Mr. Holcombe dropped everything and came to me at once. I did not know who he was. He said, "My name is Holcombe: I am from the Mission." Well, sir, if he had commenced at me as most preachers would have done, and told me in a sort of mechanical way that I had brought it all on myself, I would have said, "I am much obliged to you for your politeness and your well-meant efforts, but it does me no good, and I am very much distressed and would much prefer to be alone." He said, "There is no use trusting in yourself; you can not save yourself." That struck me at once as a correct diagnosis of my case, and I said, "That is just the conclusion I have come to myself." Then he told me what had been done for him, and he got down on his knees and prayed. And when he prayed for me and my wife and child, that is what reached my heart. I said "There is something in that man's religion at any rate. I do not believe in this stuff I have seen in the churches; but there is something in that sort of religion. It is the last straw I have to catch at. I will try it." I got up out of bed where I had been for three wretched days, and came up to the Mission. There I came in contact with some influence I had never felt before. I came to the conclusion that there was truth in the Christian religion, and I said, "That is all right, but that is not what I want. I want that inward consciousness that I am not going to drink." I might get up and say, "I am ready to confess I am wrong; I believe religion is right; I have seen evidences of it; I believe you are right and I am wrong. But I had no inward consciousness of any change in me, and I did not feel secure or in any way protected against the habit of drinking." I knew if there was anything in religion, there must be something a man would be conscious of. I said, "There is something in this religion, but I have not got the hang of it." It occurred to me that perhaps after all, my chief motive and desire in all this was the welfare of my wife and child and the recovery of our domestic happiness. And lying on that bed I said, "I am willing to do anything. There is nothing that I am not willing to do, if I can only get rid of this appetite. I will get up and state that I was a drunkard; I will acknowledge every tramp as my brother; and, although I have no desire to do it, I will go out and preach. Just let me know that I am free from this thing and that I can go on in life;" and all at once – I could not connect the thought and result together – there came upon me a perfect sense of relief. I was just as conscious then of divine interposition as I ever was afterward; and I said to myself, "This is what they call regeneration," and turned over and went to sleep. From that time I commenced a new sober life; and I never have wanted liquor; I never have had a desire for it since, and it is now going on two years.

I think many men are called, but few are chosen. There are a great many men who get far enough in the surrender to feel good and change their opinions; but they do not get down to the bed-rock of regeneration. I do not believe in any change, or in any doctrine that says there is regeneration through anything except a complete surrender. Men are ready to believe that Christ was the son of God, but go straight home and continue their old way of life. They must say, "I will not only quit serving the devil, but I will commence serving God." "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy strength."

I do not let theological opinions disturb me now. My simple faith and theology is this: That I have the peace of God and He keeps me. I have knowledge of God's power and mercy, and feel that God keeps me.

My wife and child have come back and are now with me, and are as happy as they can be; and there is not a man in this country with less money and more happiness than I. I am happier than I ever was in my life.

Note. – Captain Martin is now engaged in business in the house of Bayless Bros. & Co., Louisville.

I was born in 1846 in the State of Illinois. At that time, before there were many railroads, it was a comparatively backwoods country where I was raised. Our nearest market was St. Louis, sixty miles from where we lived. My father kept a country store there, and hauled his produce to St. Louis. My father was a professed Christian, so also was my grandfather, yet each of them kept a demijohn of whisky in the house. They would prepare roots and whisky, and herbs and whisky, which was used for all kinds of medical purposes and for all kinds of ills that flesh is heir to; and I believe at that time I got the appetite for whisky, if I did not inherit it. I have drunk whisky as far back as I can remember. I had a great many relatives who were Christians; but I gloried in my obstinacy and would have nothing to do with Christianity.

In my seventeenth year I went into the army. Of course, being among the Romans, I had to be a Roman, too; and consequently, the drinking habit grew upon me; and I acquired also a passion for gambling. After the war I did not do much good. I drifted about from place to place for something over a year, and then joined the regular army. I belonged to the Seventh Regular Cavalry, Custer's command, which was massacred on the Little Big Horn. At that time I did not belong to the command, as my time had expired some time before.

I came to Louisville in 1871, and commenced working as a restaurant and hotel cook. I was very apt at the business, and was soon able to command the best situations to be had, having been chef at the Galt House. During all this time I had been a drunkard in different stages. I was what is called a "periodical drunkard." I often braced up and went without a drink for six months or a year – something like that length of time – and always had work when I was not drinking; but I became so unreliable, that I could get no employment when another man could be had. It was said of me everywhere, "Denny is a good man, but he drinks." About 1873 I got married, and up to 1883 I had four children. Of course, my drinking, and everything of that kind, brought my family to want – in fact, to beggary. For a long time I always took my wages home on pay-day, and my wife, in her good-heartedness, always offered me money; would often ask me of a morning if I did not feel bad, and would give me fifteen cents or a quarter, not knowing that she was giving me money for my own damnation, until the year of the first Exposition here – 1882. I had a position there at twelve dollars a week. I stayed there ten weeks; and I do not believe I got home with five dollars in the whole ten weeks. The man with whom I worked had a bar attachment to his restaurant, and I could get what credit I wanted there; and on Saturday night when I found my wages were short, I would get drunk, and conclude to try and win something at gambling, but I invariably lost.

At the close of the Exposition, it was on the verge of winter, and times were very dull. I was behind with my rent and in debt to everybody I could get in debt to, my family were without decent clothing, had no fire, and I was almost naked myself, with no prospects of a situation. A short time afterward I got a position on a steamboat, which paid me fairly well, and which I believe I kept two, maybe three, weeks, and got drunk as usual. I failed to take my money home, and, of course, told my wife some lie. I had to say something. Sometimes my wife believed me, and sometimes she did not. At that time it was winter, it must have been in December, and very cold. My children were barefooted, and I was just about to be set out on the street because I had not paid my rent. I woke up one very cold morning very early, and we had not a morsel of food in the house or coal to make a fire with. I walked down toward the river and met the same man I had been working with a few weeks before. He stopped and asked me if I did not want to go back on the boat. I told him I would be glad to go back. He asked me how long before I would get drunk; and I said, as I had said a thousand times before, "I will never drink again." I made one trip, which was three days, and got drunk. It was on the second day of January, 1883, that I shipped, and I came back on the fifth, which was the coldest day I ever saw in Louisville. The thermometer was twenty-six degrees below zero between New Albany and the mouth of Salt river. There were during these dark days a few charitable people that used to give my family some of the necessaries of life – and but for that I can not see how they would have kept from starvation. I appreciated my situation nearly all the time, knew how wrong I was doing, would admit it to myself but would not admit it to anybody else. If a man had called me a drunkard, I would have called him a liar.