Lewiston Suspension Bridge

The engraving below, from a drawing made on the spot for us by Mr. Kilburn, represents the famous suspension bridge which crosses the Niagara River between Lewiston on the American and Queenstown [Queenston] on the Canada side, and is one of the most remarkable mechanical works of the present day. It has 1040 feet span, and is supported by ten cables. It was erected in 1850, under the superintendence of Mr. E. W. Servell, C. E. The village of Queenstown is celebrated as the scene of one of the battles of the second war with Great Britain, in which Winfield Scott was taken prisoner, and the English commander, General Brock, killed. A monument to the latter was erected on Queenstown Heights in 1824, and nearly demolished in 1839 by a miscreant who placed a quantity of powder in the lower part and exploded it. The battle of Queenstown was fought on the 13th of October, 1812. A detachment of a thousand men from the army of the centre, under command of Col. Solomon Van Rensellaer, crossed the river at an early hour of the morning. A storming party of six hundred men was divided into two columns—three hundred militia men under Colonel Van Rensellaer, and three hundred regulars under Colonel Christie. These were to be followed by Colonel Fenwick’s artillery, and then the other troops in order. The eddies of the stream and the fire of the enemy were serious obstacles to the passage of the river. Colonel Van Rensellaer, leading the van of one hundred men, was the first to land, and received four severe wounds. He did not fall, however, but was able to issue his orders for storming the fort, and had the pleasure of seeing that achievement gallantly performed, and the enemy driven down the hill. Both parties were now reinforced, and the struggle for the possession of the hill renewed. In this contest, General Brock and his aid[e], Captain McDonald, fell at nearly the same moment. The British were repulsed, and victory apparently crowned the American arms. To Lieutenant Totten, afterward Scott’s chief engineer in the Mexican war, the duty was assigned of fortifying Queenstown Heights against further anticipated attacks of the enemy. But at three o’clock in the afternoon, the British, being reinforced by several hundred Chippewa Indians, rallied and advanced again to the attack. Their charge was met with the gallantry which had been displayed by our troops in the former conflicts, and they were again repulsed. At this moment, General Van Rensellaer, finding the militia on the American side embarking but slowly, crossed the Niagara to hasten their transit. To his mortification and indignation, however, twelve hundred of them refused to obey orders. The sight of the carnage on the British shore had completely cooled the ardor they had manifested in the early part of the day, and which was so great that their commanding officers had found it difficult to hold them back. In spite of the commands, threats, reproaches and entreaties of the gallant Van Rensellaer, they remained inactive spectators of the heroic struggle for victory which their brave countrymen on the opposite shore were making against rapidly increasing odds. Although the British were reinforced by eight hundred men from Fort George, the Americans, for some time, prolonged the unequal struggle. At last, however, they were compelled to lay down their arms, and surrender themselves as prisoners of war. The American loss was about sixty killed and one hundred wounded, out of seven hundred and sixty engaged in the final conflict. The loss of the British must have been even more severe, owing to the superiority of our marksmanship. General Scott, then lieutenant colonel, was under fire in this action, and commanded on the heights after the fall of all his superior officers. He exhibited on this occasion the utmost intrepidity.