"should/ would" opinions please

[Jonathan Lighter]

Here's an interesting "should/would" question with a dash of "might" for
those more attuned to 19th C. nuance than I am.

In an 1881 essay on the battle of Shiloh, Ambrose Bierce concludes by
waxing poetic in the following terms:

"Ah, Youth, there is no such wizard as thou! …[G]ild for but one moment the
drear and somber scenes of to-day, and I will willingly surrender an other
[sic] life than the one that I should have thrown away at Shiloh."

I can't believe (from the broader context) he means that he "should" have
thrown his life away; merely that he "might" have (by being killed).  (The
"other" life involved, in contrast to his adventurous youth, is his drab
post-bellum existence.)

Whatever Bierce may mean, I don't feel that my sprakgefool is sharp enough
to determine the nuances of "should" and "would" in this case.

How do others interpret Bierce's meaning?

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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