High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Nathaniel Prentice Banks (January 30, 1816 ? September 1, 1894) was an American politician and soldier, served as Governor of Massachusetts, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and as a Union general during the American Civil War.Banks was born at Waltham, Massachusetts, the first child of Nathaniel P. Banks, Sr., and Rebecca Greenwood Banks. He received only a common school education and at an early age began work as a bobbin boy in a local cotton factory; throughout his life he was known by the humorous nickname, Bobbin Boy Banks.