Francisco Solano López had left Humaitá with…

Francisco Solano López had left Humaitá with part of his troops in March 1868 for San Fernando, fifty-five miles north of the fortress and about one hundred miles from Asunción.

With Paraguay suffering severe shortages of weapons and supplies, López reacts with draconian attempts to keep order, ordering troops to kill any combatant, including officers, who talks of surrender.

As a result, paranoia prevails in the army, and soldiers fight to the bitter end.

Paraguay suffers massive casualties, losing perhaps the majority of its population.

With the allies pressing him hard, he convinces himself that his Paraguayan supporters have actually formed a conspiracy against his life.

Thereupon, several hundred prominent Paraguayan citizens are seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with more than two hundred foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations (the San Fernando massacres).

During this time he also has his seventy-year-old mother flogged and orders her execution, because she had revealed to him that he had been born out of wedlock.

This is recounted in Circle of Fire at San Fernando: A Translated Account of the Horrific Massacre by Gunfire at San Fernando and Elsewhere, During the Paraguayan War, 1865-1870, with Commentary of the Triple Alliance and Related Tales of Woe, to Include Charles A. Washburn's Diplomacy Under Difficulties; Osvaldo Bergonzi, John A. Fatherley.