Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

In other parts of Virginia there were operations about the close of the year, which must be very briefly and generally referred to, as they belong to a very minor theatre of the war. That theatre lay between Gen. Lee's lines in Virginia and East Tennessee in the district commanded by the active and eccentric Gen. Sam Jones, and almost constantly disturbed by incursions and raids of the enemy. Here the great annoyance was from the famous Federal raider Averill, who, after a various and unequal career, succeeded in December, 1863, in striking the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at Salem, and badly severing what was at that time the most important line of communication in the Confederacy.

Gen. Lee finding no prospect of Longstreet's arrival or other reinforcement from the West, retired to the old line of the Rapidan. The Federal forces went into winter-quarters on the line of the Rappahannock about the 6th December; the Confederate army did the same on the Rapidan; and the curtain of winter dropped on the great scenes of the war in Virginia.