Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss
BANKS, Nathaniel Prentiss, born at Waltham, Massachusetts, Jan. 30, 1816. While a boy he worked in a cotton factory, and afterwards learned the trade of a machinist. In time he became editor of a country newspaper, and received an appointment in the Boston Custom House. He also studied law, was admitted to the bar, and in 1849 was elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts, of the Lower House of which he was chosen Speaker in 1851; and in the following year he was elected a member of Congress, nominally as a Democrat; but he soon formally withdrew from the Democratic party, and in 1854 was reelected by the concurrent vote of the "American" and Republican parties. At the following meeting of Congress he was chosen Speaker on the 133rd ballot, after the longest contest ever known. He was also a member of the next Congress, and in 1857 was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and re-elected in 1858 and 1859. On the outbreak of the civil war he was made major-general of volunteers, was assigned to the command of a corps in the army of the Potomac, and was subsequently placed at the head of the forces for the defence of the city of Washington. In December he succeeded General Butler in command at New Orleans, and in July, 1863, took Port Hudson on the Mississippi. In the spring of 1864 he made an unsuccessful expedition up the Red River, in Louisiana, and was in May relieved of his command. He again entered upon political life, and was re-elected to Congress from his old district in 1866, and again in 1868 and 1870. In 1872 he took an active part in favour of the election of Horace Greeley to the presidency, as the candidate of the Democrats and the so-called "Liberals." In 1876 he was again elected to Congress by the votes of the Democrats and of that portion of the Republicans who were opposed to the policy of President Grant, but has acted with the Republican party. He is at present U. S. Marshal for the district of Massachusetts.