When the Spanish army withdrew in defeat to Cuba after the decisive Battle of Lake Maracaibo (1823), López, who had fought in this battle, left with them, as did many other survivors including Calixto García de Luna e Izquierdo, who would be grandfather of Cuban independence Major General Calixto García. In 1825, he married the sister of the Count of Pozos Dulces in Cuba, María Dolores, with whom he had a son. Narciso López, who had earned the rank of colonel of the Spanish Army in Venezuela at only 31, fought in the First Carlist War. After the war, López continued to serve the Spanish government in several administrative posts, including the Cortes for Seville and as military governor in Madrid. López moved to Cuba as an assistant to the new capitan general, but he lost his post when the governorship changed hands in 1843. After failing in a few business ventures, he became a partisan of the anti-Spanish faction in Cuba. In 1848, during a Spanish arrest of Cuban revolutionaries, López fled to the United States.