The United States expanded its economic influence and added overseas territory in the last decades of the nineteenth century, using both diplomacy and its military power. North Carolinians participated in this drive for empire, notably in the Spanish-American War of 1898. In this chapter we’ll evaluate America’s imperialism in the Gilded Age and North Carolinians’ contributions.

Section Contents

• Expansion and Empire, 1867–1914
• The Spanish-American War
• "The duty of colored citizens to their country"
• The Third North Carolina Regiment
• Ensign Worth Bagley