1. An interpretation formed by piecing together bits of evidence.
2. Recall via mental reconstruction.
3. The activity of constructing something again.

The period after the United States Civil War when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union; 1865-1877.
In US history, the period 1865–77 after the Civil War during which the nation was reunited under the federal government after the defeat of the Southern Confederacy.
Amendments to the US constitution, and to Southern state constitutions, conferred equal civil and political rights on blacks, although many Southern states, opposed to these radical Republican measures, still practiced discrimination and segregation. During Reconstruction, industrial and commercial projects restored the economy of the South but failed to ensure racial equality, and the former slaves remained, in most cases, landless laborers, although emancipated slaves were assisted in finding work, shelter, and lost relatives through federal agencies. Reconstruction also resulted in an influx of Northern profiteers known as carpetbaggers. Both the imposition of outside authority and the equal status conferred on former slaves combined to make Southerners bitterly resentful. Although Radical Republicans sought punitive measures against the South, they were restrained by President Abraham Lincoln. When President Andrew Johnson refused to agree to their program, the Radicals contrived to bring about his impeac
hment, failing by one vote to convict him.