Judge Holden is a fictional character from the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and is based on a historical person who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalp-hunter in Mexico and the American Southwest during the mid-19th century. To date, the only source for Holden's character in Blood Meridian is from Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue, an autobiographical account of Chamberlain's life as a soldier during the Mexican–American War. Chamberlain described Holden as the most ruthless of the roving band of mercenaries led by Glanton, with whom Chamberlain had traveled briefly after the war: "[he] had a fleshy frame, [and] a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression"; "a man of gigantic size"; "by far the best educated man in northern Mexico"; "in short another Admirable Crichton, and with all an arrant coward".