Judge Holden is a purported historical person, a murderer who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalp-hunter in Mexico and the American South-West during the mid-19th century. To date, the only source for Holden's existence is 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 well-spoken, intelligent, and physically quite large, as well as perhaps the most ruthless of the roving band of mercenaries led by Glanton, with whom Chamberlain briefly traveled after the war. Holden, Chamberlain describes, "had a fleshy frame, [and] a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression." Chamberlain makes it very clear that he strongly disliked Holden: "I hated him at first sight, and he knew it," Chamberlain wrote. "Yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me; he would often seek conversation with me." He was popularized as the main antagonist of Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian (1985), where he is described as "a massive, hairless, albino man who excels in shooting, languages, horsemanship, dancing, music, drawing, diplomacy, science and anything else he seems to put his mind to. He is also the chief proponent and philosopher of the Glanton gang’s lawless warfare." Historical basis In Samuel Chamberlain's autobiographical My Confession, he describes Holden: The second in command, now left in charge of the camp, was a man of gigantic size called "Judge" Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler blooded villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. His desires was blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation and Texas; and before we left Fronteras a little girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, no one charged him with the crime. Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the