The War of the Secession 1860-65 brought untold changes to the Creoles.
Many were remote from its premise; they still clung to their traditions
and held anti-American views in general. Thus politically they
viewed it through a very different looking glass.

"New Orleans society was like Alice's Looking Glass when it came to
Creole identity, with its specific and yet unverifiable qualifications: one
could change from black to white, African to French, simply by passing
through the boundaries of this Creole society. Attempting to regulate
an invisible, topsy-turvy Looking Glass realm, many Creoles went to extreme
lengths in their efforts to create a pure, culturally superior Creole identity.
A respected and influential post-bellum historian, Charles Gayarre is exemplary
on the topic of Creole identity. Enraged by George Washington Cable's
fictional portraits of Creoles of color, Gayarre delivered a lecture "before
a large and enthusiastic audience" at Tulane University in 1885, in which
he insisted that "[i]t has become high time to demonstrate that the Creoles
of Louisiana, whose number to-day may approximately be established at
250,000 souls, have not, because of the names they bear, a particle of African
blood in their veins." Gayarre attempts to grapple with the straightforward
historical fact that Creoles had always been a mixed race in Louisiana; he notes
himself that "the negroes born within her [Louisiana] limits were Creoles from
Colonial times onward to distinguish them from the imported Africans, and from
those who, long after, were brought from the United States." 1paraphrased

Others were energized by the war. They viewed it as a great promise
to re-energize their unique Latin cultural traditions. It was the promise
of the continuation of Latino Society as they knew it. The continued
Americanization of the Creoles, was in their view, intolerable. Winning
the war would stem the rapid influx of Americans, other non Latin
immigrants, and free blacks from other states. Creoles with this point of
view supported the war as a means to an end.

"The collapse of the Confederacy came... as a terrible blow to zealots such
as these, who had looked to the War as their passport to a revived
Gallic society secure in its cultural rebirth, and guaranteed its rightful sway
over Americans as well as naturally inferior Blacks. What they were to
experience after 1862, and even more completely after 1865, was occupation
of the armed might of the American north, whose military legions and
swarming carpet baggers seemed to them yet another wave of Anglo Saxon
invasion which had swept into their lives in an ever increasing fashion since 1803.
Some found it impossible to submit, preferring to exile themselves from their homeland forever."2

"Monday was a memorable day. I left New Orleans from the old harbor on board the
schooner United States with 60 or more people as unfortunate as I. We left the old harbor
between 6 and 7am... Within sight of Fort Pike, the weather was very bad... The next
day we continued on. Then we met the ship, which on board had Felix Arroyo, Armand Dupre,
the Labarre family, Barthe family, and also the Pelot family was on board... We arrived at Mobile
on the morning 27 june.

...after dinner I sat on the porch of the boardinghouse smoking my pipe and talking with
the men, the Laresche women, and other American women. I never spoke so much English
at one time in my life!" wednesday 16 sept 1863 Richmond. 3 from the personal diary of Henri Garidel

New Orleans was seized by Federal troops early in 1862 with little resistance on the part
of New Orleanians. The Federals commenced occupation of the city from that time until
the end of 1877.