Wounded Civil War soldiers did NOT glow in the dark at Shiloh - or anywhere else

 There is no "Angel's Glow"

Shiloh National Military Park, TN

There are all sorts of folklore and legends that date back to the Civil War. Here's an example:

One of the enduring mysteries of the American Civil War was a little-known phenomenon they saw on some soldiers' wounds after the Battle of Shiloh. They called it Angel’s Glow". [1]

Although the term gets a lot of hits on the internet - ("2,990,000 results" as of January 2025), Timothy B. Smith - a history lecturer and a former ranger at the Shiloh National Military Park[**] - said that prior to a 2001 news report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture about it, he had never heard or read about wounds that "faintly glowed in the dark". [2] 

That's notable because there are more than 2,000 contemporary accounts that were written by those who actually participated - in one form or another - in the Battle of Shiloh.[3] 

None of these accounts mention soldiers with glowing wounds.

Given that "glowing people" were as rare in 1862 as they are in 2025, it’s hard to imagine that not a single soldier or doctor or nurse mentions these glowing wounds in a medical journal or a diary or even in a letter home. 

Floating around the internet are also some sites that try to credit Ambrose Bierce - famous author and officer in the 9th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment - with mentioning this event in one of his Civil War writings - including his fiction short story "Incident at Owl Creek Bridge"! 

Bierce never mentioned the phenomenon.

Bottom line: There was no “Angel’s Glow” - not from the Battle of Shiloh or from anywhere else except a Petri dish in a laboratory.

There are millions of forgotten stories from the Irrepressible Conflict. This was NOT one of them.

Mac

═══ ⚔ 𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒔 ⚑ ═══  

[**] Here is a statement from the Shiloh National Military Park Facebook page regarding "Angel's Glow": 

https://www.facebook.com/ShilohNMP/photos/a.112884892134839/567562260000431/?type=3 Retrieved January 18, 2025.

Works Cited

[1] Lamoureux, Aimee "Why Some Wounded Civil War Soldiers Actually Glowed In The Dark – And Lived Because Of It". all that’s interesting (ati): What Curious Minds Read. Retrieved January 18, 2025.

[2] Izzo, Jack "Some Civil War Soldiers’ Wounds Glowed in the Dark?" Snopes - October 26, 2023. https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/26/angels-glow-civil-war/ Retrieved January 18, 2025.

[3] Grooms, Kelly. "The Battle of Shiloh’s Angel’s Glow: Fact, Civil War Legend or Modern Myth?" Promega Connections: Thought, tech tips, and news about science - July 11, 2024. Retrieved January 18, 2025.