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 46th Iowa Infantry was organized at Davenport, Iowa, and mustered in for one-hundred days Federal service on June 10, 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 46th Iowa garrisoned strategic points on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.
A total of 918 men served in the 46th Iowa at one time or another during its existence.
[1] It suffered 6 enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds and 25 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 31 fatalities.