Most wetland resources throughout the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and its associated tributaries have been lost due to conversion to agriculture. The Wetlands Reserve Program was designed to restore ecological function and support wildlife diversity in each of the thousands of wetlands the program has restored; however, ecological monitoring has been sporadic. To inform future restorations, we assessed wetland environmental factors and examined fish and macroinvertebrate communities post-restoration. We quantified a suite of environmental variables, community composition, and diversity in 12 wetlands of different condition (e.g., degraded, restored, and reference). Our results indicated that wetland hydrology and lateral connectivity may be the most important environmental factors to focus on when restoring wetlands and that restoration did not create differences in community composition but did lead to differences in diversity for fish and macroinvertebrates. Generally, freshwater communities responded quickly and approached reference condition within a few years. Additionally, we found that wetland proximity to the Mississippi River affected the relative abundance of certain species. Mitigations to altered hydrology paired with riverine hydrogeomorphic setting and location within a warm climate likely led to high levels of diversity in restored wetlands. Current and future projects should scrutinize wetland hydrology to promote their desired animal community. We suggest that restorations focus on mitigating altered wetland hydrology and continue enrolling riverine wetlands for restoration to increase animal diversity. Considering the loss of wetlands and loss of freshwater biodiversity, wetland restoration efforts have local and global importance.