Asbury Coward (September 19, 1835 - April 28, 1925) was a school leader, Confederate Army officer, South Carolina Superintendent of Education, and Superintendent of The Citadel.

He was born on the Quenby Plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina,^[1] and graduated from South Carolina Military Academy (now The Citadel) in 1854. He and classmate Micah Jenkins established the King's Mountain Military School in Yorkville in 1855.^[2] It closed at the start of the American Civil War. It reopened after the war but the boarding school struggled with the challenging times and closed.^[2]

During the Civil War, Coward was commissioned as a colonel and served under General James Longstreet in Tennessee and Georgia.^[2]

He served as president of the Kings Mountain, North Carolina, centennial committee.^{[citation needed]}

In 1890, Coward was named Superintendent of The Citadel. He remained in that office until 1908 and died in 1925.^[2] He is buried at Rosehill Cemetery in York County.^[3]

The Daughters of the American Revolution erected a monument honoring him at Kings Mountain National Military Park in Blacksburg.^[4] The Citadel has a collection of his letters.^[5] Winthrop University has a small collection of his letters.^[6] His memoir was published in 1968.^[7]