See J. H. Maiden, _Sir Joseph Banks_ (1909).

BANKS, NATHANIEL PRENTISS (1816-1894), American politician and soldier, was
born at Waltham, Massachusetts, on the 30th of January 1816. He received
only a common school education and at an early age began work as a
bobbin-boy in a cotton factory of which his father was superintendent.
Subsequently he edited a weekly paper at Waltham, studied law and was
admitted to the bar, his energy and his ability as a public speaker soon
winning him distinction. He served as a Free Soiler in the Massachusetts
house of representatives from 1849 to 1853, and was speaker in 1851 and
1852; he was president of the state Constitutional Convention of 1853, and
in the same year was elected to the national House of Representatives as a
coalition candidate of Democrats and Free Soilers. Although re-elected in
1854 as an American or "Know-Nothing," he soon left this party, and in 1855
presided over a Republican convention in Massachusetts. At the opening of
the Thirty-Fourth Congress the anti-Nebraska men gradually united in
supporting Banks for speaker, and after one of the bitterest and most
protracted speakership contests in the history of congress, lasting from
the 3rd of December 1855 to the 2nd of February 1856, he was chosen on the
133rd ballot. This has been called the first national victory of the
Republican party. Re-elected in 1856 as a Republican, he resigned his seat
in December 1857, and was governor of Massachusetts from 1858 to 1861, a
period marked by notable administrative and educational reforms. He then
succeeded George B. McClellan as president of the Illinois Central railway.
Although while governor he had been a strong advocate of peace, he was one
of the earliest to offer his services to President Lincoln, who appointed
him in 1861 major-general of volunteers. Banks was one of the most
prominent of the volunteer officers. When McClellan entered upon his
Peninsular Campaign in 1862 the important duty of defending Washington from
the army of "Stonewall" Jackson fell to the corps commanded by Banks. In
the spring Banks was ordered to move against Jackson in the Shenandoah
Valley, but the latter with superior forces defeated him at Winchester,
Virginia, on the 25th of May, and forced him back to the Potomac river. On
the 9th of August Banks again encountered Jackson at Cedar Mountain, and,
though greatly outnumbered, succeeded in holding his ground after a very
sanguinary battle