Solano López was born in Manorá, a "barrio" of Asunción in 1827. His father, Carlos Antonio Lopez, ascended to the Paraguayan Presidency in 1841 following the death of the nation's longtime dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. The elder Lopez would commission his son as a Brigadier General in the Paraguayan Army, at the age of 18, in 1844. During the Argentine Civil Wars, Solano Lopez was appointed commander-in-chief of Paraguayan forces stationed along the Argentine frontier. He pursued his early military studies in Rio de Janeiro and Asunción specializing in fortifications and artillery.