Catholic Know-Nothings?

[TDAS04]

Did a significant number of Catholics vote for Know-Nothing candidates in the 1850s (at least in the South)?  It appears that in 1856 Know-Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore performed well in the predominantly Catholic portions of Louisiana and Maryland.

It may seem strange for Catholics to support such an anti-Catholic party, but maybe the Know-Nothings in the South weren't as concerned about Catholics or immigrants.  It seems that the Southern Know-Nothings were more focused on things like trying to keep the Union together.  So the party's support among Catholics may not be that implausible.

[Thunderbird is the word]

possibly a handful of established Irish immigrants in the north also who didn't want to have they're reputations tarnished by the horde of new arrivals.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I wonder if the Know-Nothings had significant support amongst ex-Catholic converts. Remember that Thomas Nast was baptized Catholic and a convert from Catholicism.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

French Catholic South Louisiana had been strong for the Whigs, supportive of sugar tariffs and internal improvements, and in opposition to the more populist interests of many of the relative newcomers  (mostly Protestants and but also some Irish Catholics). When the Whig party more or less turned into the "Native American" Party in the South, many Catholics there stuck with them.   

*(also one of the few places in the South that Van Buren didn't generally do worse than Jackson a few years earlier. In part this was because Jackson was not an especially good fit for the culture and politics of the area, in spite of him being the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.  But it was also in part thanks to the fact that Whigs elsewhere had promoted the rumor that Van Buren was a Catholic, which local Democrats then seized on for their own advantage.)