An important center for blockade runners, detachments of the 4th Louisiana Infantry were stationed in Berwick in the fall of 1861. The wharfs became a site for guerrilla warfare on Union ships effective enough to outrage Admiral D. G. Farragut. The largest Civil War engagement in Pointe Coup e Parish took place in early September 1863 when Union troops moved from Morganza along Bayou Fordoche. Fortress Morganza - After his failed Red River Campaign, General Banks camped his Union army at Morganza. A large fort was constructed on the site which served the Union army until the end of the war.
Interpretive programs illustrate the story.
The area includes part of the battlefield, viewing towers, trenches, guns and a cemetery for more than 3,000 Union soldiers, most of whom are unknown. The Battle of Port Hudson was one of the first battles in which freed black soldiers engaged in combat on the side of the Union. In 1861, the silence of Fort Pike was broken. Before the actual start of the Civil War, the Louisiana militia captured the fort and held it until the Union forces took New Orleans in 1862. Federal forces then reoccupied the fort and used it as a base for raids along the Gulf coast and Lake Pontchartrain areas and as a protective outpost for New Orleans.