Scope and Content Note
The papers of Nathaniel Prentiss Banks (1816-1894) span the years 1829-1911, with the bulk of the material from 1860 to 1880. The collection is organized in nine series: Diaries and Notebooks, Family Correspondence, General Correspondence, Letterbooks, Military Papers, Speeches and Writings, Miscellany, Scrapbooks, and Oversize.
The Diaries and Notebooks contain daily appointments, memoranda, quotations from readings, records of expenditures, and miscellaneous lists. The volumes from the Civil War period include lists of officers and supplies as well as notes concerning defense strategies and other military matters.
The Family Correspondence series consists chiefly of letters between Banks and his wife, Mary Theodosia Palmer Banks. Many of Mary Banks’s postwar letters describe her travels abroad, especially in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Nathaniel Banks's letters contain comments on Civil War battles, his impressions of military and political personalities, and his views on matters relating to state and national politics.
The General Correspondence represents the breadth and scope of Nathaniel Banks's political and military activities. There is little correspondence documenting his earliest political activities while serving in the Massachusetts legislature. However, his early years, 1853-1857, in the United States Congress are well covered. In 1856 Banks was elected speaker of the House of Representatives; correspondence in that and the following years includes items concerning the issues of the Kansas territorial question and items concerning the assault on Charles Sumner in May 1856. There is much correspondence related to the establishment of the Republican Party in 1856 in the letters of S. M. Allen, John Bigelow, George S. Boutwell, Horace H. Day, John C. Frémont, George Law, and most notably, Isaac Sherman. Correspondence for 1857-1860 chiefly concerns state business while Banks was governor of Massachusetts. The letters of Samuel Bowles and Anson Burlingame relate developments of the presidential nomination of 1860 in which Banks was a candidate for the Republican nomination.
The bulk of the General Correspondence covers the period 1861-1865 and relates to Banks's activities as major general of Volunteers in Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia and later the Department of the Gulf. Also included in the early Civil War correspondence is the official correspondence of Major General Robert Patterson, who had preceded Banks in command of the Shenandoah Valley. Banks's Civil War correspondence concerns all phases of military operations and includes material related to Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign, the Battle of Cedar Mountain, military operations at Port Hudson, and the Red River Campaign. Correspondence of 1863-1865 also relates to Banks's involvement with the organization of a free-state government in Louisiana and his efforts to assist Abraham Lincoln in the formulation of national policies on reconstruction issues in the Southern states. Correspondents include Generals Ulysses S. Grant, H. W. Halleck, George B. McClellan, Irvin McDowell, Robert Patterson, John Pope, Fitz-John Porter, Winfield Scott, William T. Sherman, James Shields, and Franz Sigel, and Admirals David G. Farragut and David D. Porter.
The post-Civil War correspondence is mainly concerned with diplomatic issues while Banks served as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives and includes matters relating to the Alaska purchase, the proposed annexation of Santo Domingo and St. Thomas, relations with Spain and Cuba, the Fenian uprising, and the early plans for the construction of an isthmian canal. Other correspondents include Francis W. Bird, James G. Blaine, Anson Burlingame, Benjamin F. Butler, John Murray Forbes, John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Carl Schurz, William H. Seward, John Sherman, Edwin McMasters Stanton, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Gideon Welles.
The Military Papers concern military matters while Banks served in the Civil War and mainly include personnel lists and reports, financial records, sketches, maps, and material related to the 1864 free-state elections in Louisiana. The Speeches and Writings series consists of published and handwritten copies of speeches and lectures, and legislative bills which he introduced. These are followed by a large collection of miscellaneous research notes, citations, and other reference materials used in his speeches. The Miscellany series contains printed matter and newspaper clippings, with many items annotated in Banks's hand. Included in the printed matter are speeches and writings by persons other than Banks. Other material in the Miscellany consists of personal financial records, biographical items notes and memoranda, cards, invitations, programs, and miscellaneous office records and other papers relating to Banks's service as United States marshal for the Boston District, 1879-1888.
The Scrapbook series consists of bound volumes containing newspaper clippings, biographical information, printed matter, copies of speeches and writings by Banks and others, poems, and maps, often with annotations in Banks's hand.
A bound volume of an incomplete index to the General Correspondence is available in the Manuscript Division Reading Room.