Home » Reference » Humanities » After the Battle of Shiloh – 1862, many Civil War soldiers’ lives were saved by a phenomenon called Angel’s Glow. The soldiers who laid in mud for two rainy days had wounds that glowed in the dark and healed unusually fast. In 2001, two teens discovered the reason – bioluminescent bacteria.

After the Battle of Shiloh – 1862, many Civil War soldiers’ lives were saved by a phenomenon called Angel’s Glow. The soldiers who laid in mud for two rainy days had wounds that glowed in the dark and healed unusually fast. In 2001, two teens discovered the reason – bioluminescent bacteria.

Angel’s Glow

During the two days of fighting at the Civil War battle of Shiloh (1862) the wounded numbered over 16,000. Many were immobilized in the mud of the rain-soaked fields situated between river and swamp. Their wounds were easily contaminated. And some of these wounds, by many accounts, began to glow.

Of the over 3500 dead at Shiloh a few were generals. Two surviving Union officers would become President of the United States (Grant and Garfield). A Lieutenant Ambrose Bierce was there, and later in life, by then a famous author, wrote of the battle that: “ God’s great angels stood invisible among the heroes in blue and the heroes in gray, sleeping their last sleep in the woods of Chickamauga.”

Angel’s Glow

These angels then got busy i… Continue Reading (3 minute read)

Leave a Comment