Sweet's main informer and agent, John T. Shanks, a Confederate prisoner who was a former Morgan's Raider and a convicted criminal, testified against the defendants. Sweet kept the pretense that Shanks was not his agent and lied that Judge Morris had aided Shanks to escape from Camp Douglas. In a recently discovered letter of March 29, 1865, from Sweet to Hoffman, Sweet told Hoffman of using Shanks and asked for approval of one year's pay from the prison fund for him. No record of a reply from Hoffman has been found.