Brazilian troops, with about 2,600 men under the command of general José Antônio Correia da Câmara, approached and surrounded the camp, without López's knowledge.

[22] After the occupation of the city, Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Marquess of Caxias, until then the allied commander-in-chief, deemed the war over and withdrew from the conflict.

The first column, the 2nd Army Corps under the command of marshal Vitorino José Carneiro Monteiro, coming from Campo Grande, advanced along the trail of Caaguijurú, on the central path of the village.

[31] The Count of Eu then dispatched a cavalry force there, under the command of colonel Moura; upon arriving at Espadín he found and rescued about 1,200 women and children in a state of misery.

On 20 August, a small Brazilian force, under the command of colonel Carlos Neri, faced the rearguard of the Paraguayans in the Hondo stream, about 30 kilometers from Caraguatay, but decided to camp there along with the rest of Mitre's troops.

But if they refused, even the eventual prisoners would be beheaded, causing surprise both for Solano López, who was outraged by the note, and for the Count of Eu, who said he had been unaware of the incident, due to the novelty of the content of the message.

[36] On 26 September, the Count of Eu was having difficulties in maneuvering his army in pursuit of the Paraguayan president, due to constant supply issues, and in order not to let López escape through the interior, he divided his forces into small vanguards.

Meanwhile, a column of 2,600 men from Concepción, led by general José Antônio Correia da Câmara, guarded the Mato Grosso border to prevent López from crossing the Paraguay River to the right bank.

[37][a] On 8 February 1870, Solano López and his column, consisting of about 500 people, including vice president Domingo Sánchez, generals Bernardino Caballero, Isidoro Resquín, Francisco Roa and José María Delgado, as well as women and children, all hungry and ragged, armed mainly with spears and swords, arrived at Cerro Corá, a place of dense forest and rocky outcrops,[39] located 454 kilometers northeast of Asunción.

[42] Already in the final days of February, the 412 soldiers and officers, in addition to Solano López, found themselves surrounded, without knowing it, by the imperial troops of general José Antônio Correia da Câmara.

In Tacuara, the imperial forces, under the command of lieutenant colonel Francisco Antônio Martins, attacked from the rear with bayonets, quickly capturing the artillery, which did not fire a single shot.

At the moment when Centurión and Rivera informed López about the fall of the position, imperial cavalry reached Cerro Corá and surrounded the camp in a pincer movement, spearing and sabering whoever they found, closing the siege at the mouth of the Chiriguelo trail.

[47] During the escape of López and his family, the cart carrying his wife Eliza Lynch stayed behind, about three hundred meters away, and his son Panchito returned to escort her.

On 8 April, the Paraguayans were in the village of Bela Vista, still resisting, but general Caballero was convinced that Solano López was dead and surrendered, along with 54 soldiers, to major Francisco Xavier Marques.

[52] After the defeat of his riflemen, López went to the headquarters, in the center of the camp, and from there, together with colonel Silverio Aveiro, major Manuel Cabrera and lieutenant Ignacio Ibarra, all on horseback, they tried to flee, but were overtaken by some Brazilian cavalrymen, on the left, which prevented a flight to the Aquidabán-nigüí stream.

[58][59] This cavalryman was José Francisco Lacerda, known as Chico Diabo (Devil Frank), who was 22 year old and belonged to the regiment of colonel João Nunes da Silva Tavares, of the 19th Provisional Cavalry Corps.

[60] Captain Francisco Argüello and Lieutenant Chamorro arrived to help López, facing the Brazilians with sabers, but due to numerical inferiority and physical conditions, they were defeated, being seriously injured.

[56][62] Even with the imperial presence, colonel Aveiro managed to get close to López and helped him mount his horse and drove him into the forest, opening the way with his own body, following the footprints and traces left by Paraguayan soldiers that previously went there search of fruits.

[64] Câmara wrote the first military report to marshal Vitorino José Carneiro Monteiro, called "parte", still on 1 March, declaring, twice, that López had been killed in front of him because he did not accept to surrender, despite being "completely defeated and severely wounded".

[66] In the third, a longer and more detailed report released by the Brazilian government, general Câmara said that he found major José Simeão de Oliveira and the latter informed him that López had "dismounted and gone into the forest", already wounded during the persecution he had faced.

[55][73][74][75] To prove his statement, Silva Tavares mentioned that he had requested a medical report, with the purpose of certifying the nature of López's injuries, for surgeons Costa Lobo and Barbosa Lisboa.

A wound, probably caused by a four-centimeter spear, directed obliquely from bottom to top, fatally irremediable to the marshal's life, compromising the peritoneum, bladder and intestine.

Silva Tavares continued his account: "then the general (Câmara) dismounted, went into the woods, and not far away found López leaning against the bank of the river, with part of his body immersed in the water, with the sword in his hand crossed over his head.

Emperor Pedro II recovered his shaky popularity, and on the night of the arrival of the news, he, his wife and princess Isabel walked through the streets of the city, which were full of people, well lit and decorated with flags.

The defeat, according to Doratioto, caused "the definitive rupture of a model of economic growth that meant, at the time, the bases for a formidable capitalist expansion throughout the national [productive] system".

At first, the view of the victors prevailed;[93] in it López was a tyrant, the sole responsible for the war and the destruction of his country, reducing it to a mere tributary of the Empire of Brazil and Argentina.

[93][95] According to such revisionism, López was a leader who fought international imperialism, which had transformed pre-war Paraguay into a progressive country, modernizing it and bringing social welfare to the population, fleeing the capitalist pretensions of the United Kingdom.

[105] There are several monuments in the area that record the development of the battles of the war,[106] in addition to the places where Solano López and his son Panchito died, marked with a bust and a tombstone.

Cerro Corá, directed by Guillermo Vera, was financed by the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship and used as propaganda for the ideals proposed by the regime,[108] making it a fundamental piece for the strengthening of historical revisionism in the country.

[113] The movie features a tired Solano López (played by Roberto De Felice), representing the peak of a devastated country, and Eliza Lynch (Rosa Ros) as firm, despite all the difficulties.