Reconstruction Word Search

Pick the plans, the amendments, freedom's first years, land and labor or the end, then print the puzzle and key.

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Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

WABLACKCODESAOC

IIMPEACHMENTRRC

CBFREEDMENZTOMA

IUEUMAFNTFVGGIR

VRGNAEORSUSIDUP

IEAINCUSUFFRAGE

LAMOCORMHRXMTAT

RUNNIMTIDOOCYMB

IJERPPEBRNEVHEA

GXSHARECROPPING

HOTNTONFWYLTJDG

TSYLIMTJDEFGYME

SOIHOIHDCSLBWER

RECONSTRUCTIONI

THIRTEENTHEOUTZ

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

ReconstructionRECONSTRUCTION
UnionUNION
AmnestyAMNESTY
AmendmentAMENDMENT
ThirteenthTHIRTEENTH
FourteenthFOURTEENTH
SuffrageSUFFRAGE
Civil RightsCIVIL RIGHTS
ImpeachmentIMPEACHMENT
EmancipationEMANCIPATION
FreedmenFREEDMEN
BureauBUREAU
SharecroppingSHARECROPPING
Black codesBLACK CODES
CarpetbaggerCARPETBAGGER
CompromiseCOMPROMISE

16 of 22 words from the Reconstruction Favorites list.

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Answer key: Reconstruction Word Search

WABLACKCODESAOC

IIMPEACHMENTRRC

CBFREEDMENZTOMA

IUEUMAFNTFVGGIR

VRGNAEORSUSIDUP

IEAINCUSUFFRAGE

LAMOCORMHRXMTAT

RUNNIMTIDOOCYMB

IJERPPEBRNEVHEA

GXSHARECROPPING

HOTNTONFWYLTJDG

TSYLIMTJDEFGYME

SOIHOIHDCSLBWER

RECONSTRUCTIONI

THIRTEENTHEOUTZ

RECONSTRUCTION, UNION, AMNESTY, AMENDMENT, THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, SUFFRAGE, CIVIL RIGHTS, IMPEACHMENT, EMANCIPATION, FREEDMEN, BUREAU, SHARECROPPING, BLACK CODES, CARPETBAGGER, COMPROMISE

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All 110 words

Plans to Reunite 23

Allegiance Loyalty owed to a country.
Amnesty A pardon for a whole group; most former rebels were offered one in 1863 and again in May 1865.
Army It ran the five areas set up in 1867.
Congress The lawmakers in Washington, who clashed with the president over how to rebuild.
Convention A meeting where a state repealed secession and drew up a new framework of government.
Districts The five areas of the South placed under army command by the act of 1867.
General The rank of the officer who commanded each of the five areas.
Ironclad Oath A sworn statement that a person had never supported the Confederacy.
Loyalty Faithfulness to a country or a cause.
Martial law Rule by the army in place of the usual courts.
Pardon Forgiveness under the law for a past offense.
Proclamation An official public announcement, such as the one on amnesty in May 1865.
Radical A Republican in Congress who pushed for harsher terms for the South and more rights for freed people.
Readmission A state's return to its place in the country.
Rebuild To put up again what war has torn down.

Show all 110 words (95 more)

Plans to Reunite, continued

Reconstruction The twelve years after the Civil War, when the Southern states that had left were brought back in.
Restore To bring back what was there before.
Soldiers About twenty thousand of them were posted in the five areas in 1867.
South The region that had left and had to be brought back.
State One of the parts that make up the country.
Ten percent The share of a state's 1860 voters who had to swear loyalty under the president's plan of December 1863.
Union The United States as one country, which the Southern states rejoined.
Wade Davis Bill The stricter plan Congress passed in 1864, which asked a majority of a state's voters to swear.

Amendments and Laws 25

Acquittal A finding of not guilty; the Senate fell one vote short of removing the president.
Amendment A change added to the country's founding document.
Ballot The paper on which a vote is cast.
Citizenship Full membership in a country.
Civil Rights The act of April 1866 by this name first said that African Americans were citizens.
Court A place where cases are judged; an 1871 act moved some from state ones to federal ones.
Election A contest decided by counting votes.
Enforcement The acts of 1870 and 1871 that outlawed threats at the polls went by this name.
Equality The state of having the same rights as everyone else.
Federal Belonging to the national government, not to a state.
Fifteenth The change, ratified in 1870, that said the vote could not be denied because of race.
Fourteenth The change that made everyone born in the country a citizen with equal protection of the laws.
House The chamber of Congress that brought the charges.
Impeachment The House's formal charge against an official; a president faced it for the first time in these years.
Jury The 1875 act required fair treatment in public places and on this body of citizens.
Override To pass a law over a president's refusal, as Congress did in 1866.
Party A group that runs candidates for office.
Polls The places where people go to vote.
Ratify To approve officially, as the states must do with each change.
Senate The chamber that acts as judge in such a trial.
Suffrage The right to vote.
Tenure The holding of an office; an 1867 act about it set off the clash with the president.
Thirteenth The change, ratified in December 1865, that ended slavery for good.
Trial The hearing in which the Senate judged the president.
Veto A president's refusal to sign a bill.

Freedom's First Years 21

Bureau The agency Congress created in March 1865 to ease the change from slavery to freedom.
Church A house of worship; Union clubs helped Black communities build them.
Contract A written work agreement between a laborer and an employer.
Delegate A person chosen to speak for others at a meeting.
Education Learning, which freed people sought at once.
Emancipation The freeing of enslaved people.
Family Freed people searched for relatives sold away, and the agency helped bring them together.
Forty acres The size of the plots one Union general ordered for freed families.
Freedmen People released from slavery.
Freedom The state of being no one's property and able to choose for yourself.
Jubilee Another early name for the June 19 celebration.
Juneteenth June 19, 1865, the day the news of freedom was announced in Galveston, Texas; now a yearly celebration.
League A Union club of this kind became a political center for Black voters in the South.
Legislature A state's body of lawmakers.
Literacy The ability to read and write.
Reunite To bring together again.
Schools The agency for freed people set up scores of these across the South.
Teachers Women and men, Black and White, who taught freed people to read.
University The agency's legacy includes several of these.
Voter A person who casts a ballot.
Wages Pay for work.

Land and Labor 21

Black codes State laws passed after the war to keep freed people poor, in debt and tied to one employer.
Cotton A plant grown for its soft white fiber.
Credit Goods handed over now to be paid for later.
Crop lien A loan of store goods repaid with part of the coming harvest.
Debt Money owed.
Farm Fields and buildings where crops are grown.
Field A piece of open ground where a crop grows.
Harvest The gathering of a ripe crop.
Interest The extra charged on a loan; high rates kept farm families owing.
Labor Work, above all work done for pay.
Landowner The person who rented out the fields.
Loan Money or goods lent, to be paid back.
Merchant The store owner who advanced supplies to farmers.
Mule A strong work animal used for plowing.
Plantation A large farm; many freed people rented fields on the ones where they had been enslaved.
Planter The owner of a large farm.
Poverty The state of being poor.
Rent Payment for the use of a field or a house.
Sharecropping Farming rented ground and paying the rent with part of the crop.
Tenant A person who rents a farm or a house.
Vagrancy Having no job; the codes made it a crime for freed people.

Backlash and the End 20

Backlash A strong reaction against a change.
Carpetbagger An insulting name for a Northerner who moved south after the war.
Commission The group of fifteen that Congress set up in 1877 to settle the count.
Compromise The 1877 deal that settled a disputed presidential race and pulled the last soldiers out.
Corruption Dishonest dealing by officials.
Deadlock A standstill, like the one in Congress over the 1876 count.
Democrats The party that regained control of the Southern states.
Depression The long slump that followed the crash of 1873.
Electoral The kind of votes, twenty of them, left in dispute after the 1876 race.
Intimidation Threats used to scare voters away from the polls.
Jim Crow The later system of separation by race that grew out of the codes.
Panic The financial crash of 1873.
Poll tax A fee for voting, one of the common ways Black citizens were kept from the polls.
Redeemers White Southerners set on rolling back the changes of these years.
Redemption The name White Democrats gave their return to power by 1877.
Republican The party that Union clubs enrolled new Black voters for.
Scalawag An insulting name for a White Southerner who backed the new order.
Segregation Keeping people apart by race.
Violence The use of force to hurt or frighten.
Withdrawal The pulling out of the last soldiers, which ended the era.

How this list was compiled: 110 Reconstruction words in 5 themed lists, chosen and defined for this site. Every term, date and number in the clues was checked on 2026-09-30 against chapter 16 of OpenStax U.S. History, The Era of Reconstruction, 1865 to 1877, https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/16-introduction The list keeps to events, laws and terms and names no person. Licence: own work

How it works

This Reconstruction word search opens with 16 of 22 favorites in the grid, Amendment, Suffrage and Sharecropping among them. Five themed lists follow the years 1865 to 1877, from Plans to Reunite to Backlash and the End.

Read the full guide

Five lists, from amnesty to the 1877 compromise

Start from a list offers Plans to Reunite (23), Amendments and Laws (25), Freedom's First Years (21), Land and Labor (21) and Backlash and the End (20). The law list carries the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth, each with what it did in its clue. For the war years before 1865, print the Civil War word search.

Clues for review

Tick Show clues, not words, in More options: A loan of store goods repaid with part of the coming harvest sends the class hunting for Crop lien.

The 10 multiword entries hide without spaces: Wade Davis Bill becomes WADEDAVISBILL.
Easy Reconstruction holds 21 short words, such as Veto, Jury, Debt and Polls, for a first puzzle.

Questions and answers

Is the vocabulary suitable for grades 5 to 8?

The clues were written for readers of about 10 to 14. Slavery, the Black codes and threats against voters are named plainly, without graphic detail. No person is named, and the Ku Klux Klan is not a hidden word.

What years does the Reconstruction word search cover?

The twelve years after the Civil War. The clues run from the amnesty plan of December 1863 and the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, to the compromise of 1877, which pulled the last soldiers out of the South.

How accurate are the dates in the clues?

Each date and number was checked on 30 September 2026 against chapter 16 of OpenStax U.S. History, a free textbook. Plain words such as Ratify and Ballot carry plain dictionary meanings.

All 110 words

Plans to Reunite 23

Plans to Reunite, continued

Amendments and Laws 25

Freedom's First Years 21

Land and Labor 21

Backlash and the End 20

How it works

Five lists, from amnesty to the 1877 compromise

Clues for review

Questions and answers

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