The final class of armored cruisers to be built for the US Navy, North Carolina and her sisters were armed with a main battery of four 10-inch (254 mm) guns, and were capable of a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).

[1] The ship was propelled by two 4-cylinder, vertical triple-expansion engines, with steam provided by sixteen coal-fired Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers trunked into four funnels.

She had a storage capacity for up to 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) of coal, which allowed her to steam for 6,500 nautical miles (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Starting on 23 April, North Carolina began a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea to protect United States citizens from domestic unrest in the Ottoman Empire.

While in Adana on 17 May, the ship sent a landing party ashore to render medical aid to sick and wounded Armenians who had been attacked in an anti-Armenian massacre.

[4] For the next eight years, North Carolina conducted training exercises in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean and visited other countries in the region to show the flag.

She carried the United States Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, on a tour of the Caribbean, stopping in Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and the Panama Canal in July and August.

[4] On 7 August 1914, as World War I broke out in Europe, North Carolina was sent on a patrol in the Mediterranean to protect then still neutral United States citizens in the region.

[4] Following the United States' entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, North Carolina was employed as an escort for troop ships traveling between Norfolk and New York.