Nathaniel Prentice (or Prentiss) Banks (January 30, 1816 – September 1, 1894) was an American politician and soldier, Speaker of the House, Governor of Massachusetts, and a Union general during the American Civil War. A millworker by background, Banks was prominent in local debating societies, and his oratorical skills were noted by the Democratic Party. But his abolitionist views fitted him better for the nascent Republican Party, through which he became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1856 and Governor of Massachusetts in 1857.