Grist For The Mill

Grist For The Mill, a historical novel based on the American Civil War (1861-1865) in the Arkansas-Missouri border region. Grist For The Mill shows the complexity of life in the war-torn border region with its rending split allegiances. It centers on the Hastings family, who own a gristmill near the Pea Ridge Battlefield in Arkansas. Two of the three Hastings sons are in the Union Army, the third in the Confederate Army. Various battles in the War are seen through the eyes of the sons on both sides of the conflict. Bob and Kate Hastings, with daughter Kate and foster son Tommy, work to keep their farm and grist mill running and their family safe as control of the area repeatedly changes hands between the Union and Confederate Armies. The ever-present bandits and units of "Irregulars" loyal only to themselves increase the danger of life in the rough and tumble border region. Author Will Plank (1896-1976) was born thirty years after the end of the Civil War. He based the novel, Grist For The Mill, on first hand accounts of both the Confederate and Union Civil War veterans in northwest Arkansas whose stories he grew up listening to in Bentonville, Arkansas. He also drew from a lifetime of studying the Civil War, including from his extensive library of accounts written in the years following the War and the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. At the request of Civil War historian and New York State Civil War Centennial Commission Chair Bruce Catton, he served as Ulster County Civil War Centennial Commission Chair and wrote Banners and Bugles, a Civil War history of Ulster County, New York. He began the manuscript in the 1940s, composing the drafts on a Linotype machine. His work on the novel ceased in 1972 due to medical concerns. The manuscript was completed by his granddaughter Carla R. Lesh, PhD.

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