Karl Ludwig Sand was born to Gottfried Christoph Sand and his wife Dorothea Johanna Wilhelmina Schöpf (1766-1826), on 5 October 1795.
In 1804 he attended the Lateinschule (Latin school) in Wunsiedel and in 1810 he moved on to the grammar school (Gymnasium) in Hof, living with the school's rector, Georg Heinrich Saalfrank, a friend of Sand's Enlightened Protestant family.