The following has been reported: 

Preparations for mounting new and heavy ordnance is now going on at the entrance of the bay (March 5, 1898).

New and heavier guns are also ordered for Punta Blanca, on the right of the bay near Santiago City.

Plans have been made for constructing two batteries in the city of Santiago, one about 25 yards in front of the American consulate and the other about two blocks in rear.

Cayo Rolones, or Rat Island, located near the middle of the bay, is the Government depository for powder, dynamite, and other explosives.

The elevation on the right of the entrance, where stands Castle Morro, is 40 yards above the sea level, while the hill on the left is 20 yards.

“La Bateria Nueva de la Estrella” is mounted with four revolving cannons.

The fortifications of Havana were carefully covered in the military notes, and thus enumerated: 

There are fifteen fortifications in and about the city of Havana, more or less armed and garrisoned, besides a work partly constructed and not armed, called Las Animas, and the old bastions along the sea wall of the harbor.  These works are as follows: 

Nos. 1 and 2 are earthen redans on the sea coast, east of Havana.

Velazo Battery, just east of, and a part of, El Morro.

El Morro, a sea coast fort, with flanking barbette batteries, east of harbor entrance.

The Twelve Apostles, a water battery lying at the foot of Morro, with a field of fire across the harbor’s mouth.  It is a part of Morro.

La Cabana, a stone-bastioned work with both land and water front, in rear of El Morro, and directly opposite the city of Havana.

San Diego, a stone-bastioned work with only land fronts, east of Cabana.

Atares, a stone-bastioned work on hill at southwestern extremity of Havana Bay, near the old shipyard called the arsenal.

San Salvador de la Punta, a stone-bastioned work west of harbor entrance, with small advanced and detached work, built on a rock near harbor mouth.

La Reina, a stone work, in shape the segment of a circle, placed on the seacoast, at western limits of city, on an inlet called San Lazardo.

Santa Clara, a small but powerful seacoast battery of stone and earth, placed about 1 1/2 miles west of harbor.

El Principe, a stone-bastioned redoubt west of Havana.

Nos. 3 A, 3 B, and 4 are earthen redans on the seacoast west of Havana.

There are, in addition, several works built for defense, but now used for other purposes or abandoned.  These are: 

The Torreon de Vigia, a martello tower placed on the inlet of San
Lazaro opposite La Reina.

The old fort called La Fuerza, built three hundred and fifty years ago, near the present Plaza de Armas, and now used for barracks and public offices.

The work called San Nazario, situated north of El Principe, but now used in connection with the present cartridge factory, abandoned for defensive purposes.