The Civil War and More Americana from Chapel Hill Rare Books
Short-lived American Letter Express delivered mail between the North and South during the Civil War.
Item 188 is Three Days on the White Mountains Being the Perilous Adventure of Dr. B.L. Ball on Mount Washington. Written by Himself. Himself was one complete fool. Mount Washington is one of the most hostile environments in the inhabited world. Winter can see temperatures forty degrees below zero with winds exceeding 100 mph. Even in summer, sudden changes in the weather can turn the place extremely hostile. So one day in the Fall of 1855, brilliant Dr. Ball decides to take a hike up the mountain, with no food, no way to start a fire, and only an umbrella for shelter. An umbrella? He got lost and spent three days and two nights in wintry conditions before being found by a search party, frostbitten and suffering from exposure. This is the 1877 second edition, published 21 years after the first. $400.
