A stock tale in memoirs of women Civil War nurses relates a dying soldier, overcome with agony and fear of his impending end, being sternly chastised by the author along the lines, “If you must die, die like a man, and not like a coward.” Then—the invariable happy ending—a rapturous glow suffuses the dying soldier’s face as he accepts Jesus at the last, and slips away to eternity. That
