While the movement by rail of Longstreet's Corps from Virginia to Georgia is remembered as one of the great feats of the war, the return was quite a bit less glorious.

Longstreet's arrival of course had facilitated the Confederate victory at Chickamauga and the retreat of the Union Army of the Cumberland into Chattanooga, which the southerners besieged. Longstreet proved to be one of the many officers who did not get along with Army of Tennessee commander Braxton Bragg. With the approval of Bragg and President Davis, Longstreet moved his force against Knoxville beginning November 4. (A day later, Sherman's Army of the Tennessee began arriving to bolster the Union forces holding Chattanooga, so the wisdom of detaching Longstreet at this point might be called into question.)

Longstreet reached Knoxville and established a siege November 17. However he found the place to be well-defended and such assaults that he attempted were defeated. Meanwhile back at Chattanooga Bragg was defeated at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge November 24-25, driving the Army of Tennessee back into Georgia. Now Sherman organized an expedition of two corps to relieve Knoxville. With the approach of Sherman's force, Longstreet lifted his siege and withdrew eastward December 4. Some desultary fighting and maneuvering continued for another week or so before Longstreet's Corps settled into winter camps around Morristown, Russellville and Greenville, hamlets along the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad sixty or more miles east of Knoxville.

It was a hard winter for the I Corps. Longstreet's reports speak often of the poor condition of the railroad, difficulties in repairing bridges, lack of forage in the area, and above all his men's want of shoes, clothes and blankets. There did seem to be plenty of time for the generals to quarrel with one another though. Longstreet relieved Lafayette McLaws of command of his division and had two of his brigade commanders court-martialed for offenses real or imagined during the battles in East Tennessee.

Finally on April 7, 1864 Longstreet's Corps was ordered to return to Virginia. In his book on the Wilderness, Gordan Rhea records that the men rode crowded trains as far as Charlottesville, which they reached April 20. From there they marched to the vicinity of Gordonsville and were reviewed by General Lee on April 29. Due to uncertainty about Federal plans of attack they were held at Gordansville, arriving at a crucial moment on the morning of the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness.