Most gold mining in Virginia was concentrated in the Virginia Gold-Pyrite belt in a line that runs northeast to southwest through the counties of Fairfax, Prince William, Stafford, Fauquier, Culpeper, Spotsylvania, Orange, Louisa, Fluvanna, Goochland, Cumberland, and Buckingham.
Mining continued unabated until the onset of the California Gold Rush, at which point most serious speculators moved west.
[1] Near the end of the war, Union troops began a systematic campaign to destroy the economic base of the South.
Most were, by this time, marginal producers, their ores of such low concentrate as to stretch the limits of the mercury amalgam (chemistry) recovery technology of the day.
Amateur and hobby prospecting continues to this day, primarily consisting of individual or small scale placer operations.