Morganza takes its name from Morganza Plantation, the antebellum holding of Charles Morgan, an early surveyor, political figure and first American
sheriff of Pointe Coupee Parish. Morgan, the son of James Morgan from a town of the family's name in
Sayreville, New Jersey, and a captain in the Second Regiment of the Middlesex County (N.J.) militia during the Revolutionary War. Evidence indicates he was involved in the transfer of slaves from New Jersey to Louisiana in conflict with New Jersey law. The U.S. Post Office opened in 1847, closed some years later, and reopened in 1899. Members of the Campbell family held the position of postmaster until 1970. The town was not incorporated until 1908. Morganza was the site of a
Union Army encampment during the
American Civil War. The largest battle in Pointe Coupee Parish was fought at nearby
Stirling Plantation, on September 29, 1863. Sixteen Federal troops were killed, 45 were wounded, and 462 were taken prisoner. The
Confederate losses included 26 dead, 85 wounded, and 10 missing. Although the Battle of Sterling Plantation was a Confederate victory, the Union troops burned the town of Morganza to the ground on October 1, 1863.
Historian John D. Winters in
The Civil War in Louisiana (1963) documents the arrival in May 1864 of Federal troops in Morganza under
General Nathaniel P. Banks, recently defeated in the
Battle of Mansfield in
DeSoto Parish and abandoning the
Red River Campaign. According to Winters, conditions were miserable, with extreme heat, excessive rainfall, and epidemics of various illnesses. To commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Village of Morganza,
U.S. Congressman Rodney Alexander entered a speech about the village into the
Congressional Record on December 10, 2008.
Periodic flooding Located at the lower end of a sharp bend of the Mississippi River, Morganza has been subjected to flooding by the great river a number of times. Levee breaches or "crevasses" occurred at Morganza and Grand Levee just downriver in 1850, 1865, 1867, and 1890. The
Morganza Spillway, a major flood diversion project of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is located immediately north of the town. Construction on this mammoth work began in 1939 and was completed in 1955. High water of the Mississippi is channeled between guide levees north and west of the town of Morganza and down into the Atchafalaya Basin, thence to the Gulf of Mexico. The floodgates of this facility have been used only twice—during the high water of 1973 and 2011. The structure will be used again in the summer of 2019. ==Geography==