This major battle in the Civil War cost the Confederacy their independence. This was the battle with the largest number of deaths and was described as the war's turning point. The first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War. The battle was the center of the Gettysburg Caimpaign, which began in the middle of June 1863, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched his army, out of central Virginia and north toward the Potomac River with the plan of invading Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lee had many reasons for wanting to invade the Union. His army was in need of supplies and raw materials that could not be easily collected in the Confederacy. Lee's men had suffered for want of food during the winter and spring of 1863 and he hoped that food supplies could be obtained from northern farms and warehouses, giving farmers in Virginia an opportunity to plant and take care of their crops without armies tramping over them. General Lee also hoped to obtain a victory on northern land to take attention away from the situation at Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, where a Union army under General Ulysses S. Grant had surrounded and lay siege to it. It was also thought that a victory over the Union army on northern land may cause Great Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, and provide the growing peace movement in the North with enough reasons to press Lincoln to sue for peace. All of these things could possibly end the Civil War.