The New Student's Reference Work/Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss

Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss, an American general, born in 1816 at Waltham, Massachusetts. He studied law and was elected to the state legislature, being made speaker of the house in 1851. He was elected to Congress in 1852, but being opposed to slavery left the Democratic party. In 1854 he was again sent to congress by the Republicans and Know-nothings, and was chosen speaker of the house in 1856. He was governor of Massachusetts from 1857 to 1860. Soon after the outbreak of the war he was given command of an army corps on the Potomac. In 1862 he succeeded General Butler in the command of the Department of the Gulf. In 1863 he captured Port Hudson with 6,000 prisoners, which effected the opening of the Mississippi River, and in 1864, with Admiral Porter in charge of a gunboat fleet, he led an unsuccessful expedition up the Red River, and was there relieved of his command in May, 1864. He was a member of Congress from 1864 to 1870 and again from 1874 to 1876, and was re-elected in 1888. He died Sept. 1, 1894.