The Cossacks aimed primarily to defend their independence, but the Volunteers persuaded them that they could guarantee this only by joining with them in fighting against the Bolsheviks, who had the support of a large part of the non-Cossack population of the Don region.

With the encouragement of Kaledin, the Whites, still only some 500 strong, managed to recapture the city of Rostov from local Red Guard units on 15 December  [O.S.

[2] However, by the beginning of 1918 better-organised and stronger Communist forces began an advance from the north, capturing Taganrog on the Sea of Azov on 10 February [O.S.

The soldiers, carrying one rifle each, and hauling some field artillery, were accompanied by long trail of civilians from Rostov fearful of Bolshevik reprisals.

Another thousand civilians accompanied the army, including the politicians V. N. Lvov, L. V. Polovtsev, L. N., Novosiltsev, and N. P. Shchetnina, plus journalists, professors, soldiers' wives, doctors and nurses.

[4] According to Peter Kenez, "United by a boundless hatred of the enemy, the soldiers performed miracles of military accomplishment; the world had seen few armies of comparable size with greater fighting ability."

On 28 March, the bitterest battle was fought against the Bolsheviks in which a number of volunteer officers froze to death crossing a small river with shallow icy water, hence the name of the campaign.

[4] With his army now double in size, Kornilov decided to mount an attack on Ekaterinodar, the capital of the recently established North Caucasian Soviet Republic.

Some accounts have characterized this event as "very bad luck" because shell had hit the one room where Kornilov was, killing him but not injuring anybody else present in the building.

"[4] The campaign inspired hope in the volunteers, and showed that the white army could resist in a huge disparity of forces, just as the Steppe March was later used to raise the moral component of the troops.