How ‘Angel’s Glow’ Saved Injured Soldiers at Civil War Battlefield

One of the enduring mysteries of the American Civil War was a little-known phenomenon referred to as “Angel’s Glow.”

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, allowed Union troops to penetrate the Confederate interior. The carnage was unprecedented, with the human toll being the greatest of any war on the American continent up to that date.

The loss of life on both sides at Shiloh—which, ironically, means place of peace in Hebrew—was staggering.

Two days of fierce fighting resulted in nearly 24,000 dead, wounded or missing, and made the nation realize that The Civil War would not end quickly or without a high price in human lives. It is said that after Shiloh, the South never smiled again.

An important aspect of this terrible war was that angels were believed to have intervened on several occasions to aid or heal Union soldiers. Many soldiers reported seeing small lights around them as they lay dying from their wounds or even before they were injured. These light phenomena are thought by some to be an example of heavenly intervention into human affairs.

Angel’s Glow: What happened in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862? 1

Between 1861 and 1865, the United States was involved in a bloody conflict that cost the lives of more than 600,000 people. The Civil War, as it is often called, was fought on several fronts: the Northern Union against the Southern Confederacy. Although the war ended with a Northern victory and slavery being abolished throughout the country, it remains one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history.

“Angel’s Glow” is the name given to such a heavenly strange phenomenon that occurred in the Battle of Shiloh, during the Civil War. Thousands of soldiers witnessed a glow emanating from their wounds and helping them heal. Despite the strangeness of the case, there could be an explanation.

Photorhabdus luminescens, also known as Angel's Glow

The Battle of Shiloh (1862), the bloodiest of the American Civil War, consisted of a surprise attack by the Confederates against the Union, to push them back and away from the Tennessee River. But the confusion of the troops turned that place into a slaughter that ended with the victory of the Union forces, and with a Dantesque death toll: more than 3,000 soldiers killed and more than 16,000 wounded. Doctors on both sides were incapable of treating everyone, and the worst part was that the help would take two days.

And there, sitting in the mud, in the middle of the cold bleak night and even in the rain at times, some soldiers noticed that their wounds were emitting a faint blue-green glow, something they had never seen before. When they were finally evacuated, those who had seen their wounds gleam had a higher survival rate, healed faster, and their wounds left fewer scars. For what they called the “Angel’s Glow.”A microscopic image of Photorhabdus luminescens, also known as ‘Angel’s Glow.’

The story went unexplained until 2001, when a 17-year-old high school student, named Bill Martin, and his 18-year-old friend Jonathan Curtis did the research for their science project and proposed that a bacteria called Photorhabdus luminescens could be responsible for Angel’s Glow phenomenon.

These bacteria are luminescent and only live in cold and humid environments. The battle was fought in early April when temperatures were low and the grounds were wet with rain.

The injured soldiers were left to the elements of nature and suffered from hypothermia. This would provide a perfect environment for P. luminescens to overtake and kill off harmful bacteria avoiding possible infections. And later in the hospital, under warmer conditions, these bacteria died, leaving the wound totally clean.

Often, a bacterial infection in an open wound would herald a fatal outcome. But this was an instance where the right bacterium at the right time was actually instrumental in saving lives.