The time period after the Civil War is usually called Reconstruction (1865–1877). What does it mean to reconstruct something?
to analyze something to forget something entirely to build something again to destroy something
The prefix re- means "again." The word construct means "to build." So, reconstruct means "to build something again." After the war, the Confederate states rejoined the Union states. The border states were Southern states that had never seceded. In 1861, the Civil War started when 11 Southern states seceded, or withdrew from the country. The seceded states tried to form a new country called the Confederate States of America. The two sides of the war, the Confederacy and the Union, fought for over four years. The Confederate states lost the war in 1865. During Reconstruction, Americans debated what to do with the former Confederate states.