Donald David Horward

Visitation will be held Friday, November 12, 2021 from 6-8PM EST at Culley's MeadowWood Funeral Home, 700 Timberlane Road. There will be a Requiem Mass celebrated on Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 11:00 EST at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church with burial to follow at MeadowWood Memorial Park.

Donald was born in Pittsburgh, PA on January 9, 1933. He graduated from Waynesburg College, Waynesburg PA; with an MA from Ohio University, Athens, Ohio; and received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1962. He joined Florida State University as an instructor in 1961 and was promoted to professor in 1971, serving as department chair from 1972-75. Dr. Horward was named Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1990 and awarded six other university-wide teaching awards. He taught over 16,500 students at Florida State University, over 6,000 cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and at the Virginia Military Institute. He directed 104 Ph.D. and M.A theses in Napoleonic History and his graduates dominate the field. He was the founder and first Weider Eminent Scholar Chair in Napoleonic History at FSU, and founder and director of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution (1991-2005).

Horward held academic chairs at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point; Virginia Military Institute; the U.S. Marine War College; the U.S. Marine School of Advanced Warfighting, and was a Visiting Professor at the U.S. Marine University, U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, the Naval War College, and the Army War College. He presented over 250 scholarly papers and addresses at conferences and universities throughout the U.S. and 11 European countries.

He wrote, co-authored or contributed to more than 20 books and wrote scores of chapters and articles on the Revolutionary period that have appeared in scholarly journals published in Europe and the U.S. His students have written more than 40 books and hundreds of articles on the period. He was a founding director of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, which is now in its 52nd year as the only national organization in the field. He founded the Masséna Society, which includes over 200 members throughout the world, and with his wife, he hosted the annual Society banquet each year which attracts as many as 80 former students and colleagues. He organized five international Conferences in the U.S. and Europe; he established and developed the French Revolution-Napoleon Library Collection at Florida State University, ranking it among the finest in the U.S, and raised funds in excess of $2.5 million dollars for the first chair and a series of scholarships in Napoleonic history. In addition, his students have contributed almost a half million dollars to support the Institute. As a result, FSU is the leading university in the U.S. for the Napoleonic period.

For his teaching and research, Donald Horward was decorated by the French, American, and Portuguese governments, and recognized by the Czech Republic and Spain. He was promoted through the ranks to Commandeur of the Ordres des Palmes Académiques, founded by Napoleon in 1808, elected to the Portuguese Academy of History, and decorated by the President of Portugal. His most prized achievement was to receive the Legion of Honor, France's highest decoration, established by Napoleon in 1802, in full ceremony at West Point.

Dr. Horward is survived by his wife of 63 years, Annabel Lee Vanscyoc Horward, his beloved companion and traveling partner across Europe for 50 years, who entertained hundreds of his graduate students annually. Without her, he believed, none of his accomplishments would have been possible. He is survived by almost 50 of his former doctoral students, now teaching at universities throughout the country. In February 2020, most of his former students flew into Tallahassee to attend the Horward Symposium and spent a day honoring him and his wife. The next day over 75 students and colleagues honored him and his wife at the Massena Banquet in Tallahassee. He was preceded in death by his parents, Frank J. and Selena U. Horward, and brothers, William J. Horward and Frank J. Horward, Jr., and a sister, Barbara Templeton. Arrangements: Culley's MeadowWood Funeral Home.