It was among scores of regiments that were raised in the summer of 1864 as Hundred Days Men, an effort to augment existing manpower for an all-out push to end the war within 100 days.

The 44th Iowa Infantry was organized at Davenport, Iowa, and mustered in for one-hundred days Federal service on June 1, 1864, as part of a plan to raise short-term regiments for service as rear area garrison duty to release veteran troops for Sherman's Atlanta Campaign.

The 44th Iowa garrisoned strategic points in the Memphis, Tennessee, district.

A total of 996 men served in the 44th Iowa at one time or another during its existence.

[1] It suffered 2 enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds and 15 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 17 fatalities.