When Breatte Garrison was a student at Pungo Christian Academy in Belhaven, she was sure of two things: she loved history and she wanted to be an actress.

Today, she’s combining both interests as a historical re-enactor. An experience at a Civil War re-enactment planted the seed when she was just a child.

“I think I was born in the wrong time period,” Garrison recalled. “In third grade I went to the Plymouth re-enactment and really wanted to do it; I went back in seventh grade and loved it, so my mom had a dress made for me.”

While she prefers Civil War period re-enactments, Garrison has also branched out by taking part in Revolutionary War events as well as those focusing on the age of piracy. She’s an active member of the 20th North Carolina Company K and has taken part in reenactments in South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and points across North Carolina.

“It’s not just an interest; it’s an obsession,” Garrison said. “I plan my year around the re-enactments I go to. I’ve made more than 50 of my own costumes, including underwear and corsets. I do a lot of research when I make a dress, and there are a few dress patterns I’ve done so many times I don’t have to read the directions anymore.”

She has also made costumes for friends and family members, and she has recently spread her creative wings by taking on a couple of men’s uniforms.

“And they are tricky, compared to women’s costumes,” Garrison added with a laugh.

The Pantego native has come a long way from the 14-year-old who was just getting her feet wet as a re-enactor. Now 26, she juggles a job, school (she has one degree from Pitt Community College and is now studying cosmetology at Beaufort County Community College) and a pretty demanding schedule as a re-enactor.

Her experiences have allowed her to dabble in a bit of acting, a longtime hobby.

“I was part of an independent film being shot in Bath last summer about pirates, and I just finished doing a Civil War film called ‘Confederate Calvary’ in Florence, S.C.,” she said. “It opens doors because you meet people at re-enactments and they call when they’re doing a film. I also posed for the cover of a romance novel set in the Civil War era. I actually went all out and dyed my hair red for that.”

Educating others about history is one thing Garrison finds important while working a re-enactment.

“I enjoy teaching people the correct history, the education aspect of it, and explaining what the war was really fought over,” she said.

Garrison has a sense of humor about the costuming, and she is quick to dispel a common myth about those full dresses worn by women of the 1860s.

“TV and movies show women sitting down and their hoops flying up over their heads … that doesn’t really happen,” she said. “I can drive in my hoop skirt and corset. The hardest thing is getting dressed in those little tents during battlefield re-enactments.”

What about the weather? These days, women keep cool in the summer with the scantiest of attire. Not so for ladies a century and a half ago, when full skirts and crinolines were the fashion.

“It’s really not as bad as everybody thinks,” Garrison noted. “In the summertime you have what they call 100-percent sheer cotton fabric and it breathes. And the skirt kind of gives you some fan action!”

Garrison said being involved in re-enactments has even enhanced her culinary skills.

“I’ve learned all about cooking grits and biscuits on an open fire,” she said.