Who Wrote the Journal of Wharton's 1844 Expedition? Probably Clifton Wharton.

UPDATE: Another thing is, Cooke's company K stayed behind at the "Great Nemaha Sub-Agency" on Thursday, September 19, 1844 to supervise "payment of annuities to the Indians," as Young reports. Yes, and Wharton's journal continues uninterrupted, with the events of the next day, Friday, September 20th, and his return to Fort Leavenworth at 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 21st.  Cooke therefore could not have written the last two entries, which show no sign of altered or diminished style. Indeed, that final entry quotes from Othello to explain the absence of the tardy Chaplain:

"having takn a trail which led him down into the Missouri bottom, he got so involved in cowpaths, and cross-tracks, dead logs, and quagmires--making him almost believe, that "Chaos has come again".....

Also many more examples could be given of comments reflecting Wharton's point of view, for example:

"the Commanding officer, pursuant to his determination to seek a new route to the Pawnee villages, directed the guide..."

"Thinking with Macbeth it was "as bad retreating as go o'er," the commanding officer determined...."

"Here doubts were entertained by some whether we had struck the Platte below or above the Pawnee towns.  The Commanding officer thought below, and accordingly determined to ascend the valley."

Otis E Young credits Philip St George Cooke with authorship or co-authorship of Clifton Wharton's 1844 journal.  Major Wharton signed it, but the elevated literary style leads Young to conjecture that Wharton copied "almost verbatim from Cooke's diary" (the existence of which is also a presumption).  Jeffrey V. Pearson in his recent dissertation agrees, finding "no evidence to contradict Young's claim to Cooke's authorship."

But really, the claim for Cooke's authorship is weakly supported. 

Wharton signed the 1844 report.  Despite conventional use of the third person in references to Major Wharton, the point of view is consistently that of the commanding officer:

"The old Chief was in this line, and as he met Major Wharton and the Surgeon manifested with his people great pleasure at seeing us again."

"Pa-to-sho-kuk, an influential man among them, and one remarkable for his good sense, and his inclination to follow good counsels, remarked to the Commanding officer in a conversation on the subject of their state of suspense, that they were 'like a bird in a storm, uncertain what bough it might light upon.'"
(Expedition of Major Clifton Wharton in 1844; in
Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society vol 16)

Wharton also was an able writer, with literary ambitions of his own.  The polish of this journal is nothing like the plain style of Cooke in his 1843 Santa Fe journal, or for that matter Cooke's 1846-7 Journal of the March of the Mormon Battalion.  Allusions to classical literature, Shakespeare, and bits of romantic poetry sound more like the "Prairie Logbooks" of James Henry Carleton than anything in official accounts that Cooke is known to have written.

Wharton's' 1844 journal contains stock phrases that Wharton used in official correspondence, such as "it may be well to state..." (For example, Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1844 W255)

And here's something Otis Young apparently did not know: Wharton was seriously unhappy with Cooke around this time. Five months before the expedition, Wharton complained to the Adjutant General about Cooke's formal complaint, which included implied criticism of cavalry instruction at Fort Leavenworth.  You know Wharton is hot when he questions the manliness of Cooke's actions.

On February 17, 1844 Wharton wrote the following:

I transmit direct to you a communication received yesterday from Capt. P. St. Geo. Cooke of the Dragoons touching a remark I made on the muster roll of his company on the 31st of December last in my capacity as Mustering & Inspecting officer. The letter is sent direct because the muster rolls themselves take such a course, as well as any notes from your office touching their correction &c.

It is not without some hesitation I forward this paper, and I verily believe, if any other officer than myself was affected by it, I should return it, that all offensive matter might be stricken from it. The right of an officer to apply for a redress of grievances, or to defend himself against improper aspersions, is one thing, but, at the same time to endeavour to injure another, not by an open, manly accusation, but by innuendo, or insinuation, is quite another thing; and with the exercise of all due charity I am constrained to regard the last paragraph of Capt. Cooke’s letter in the latter light. I should be sorry to do injustice however to that officer’s motives, and I will therefore qualify my remark, by saying, that his last paragraph is calculated, if not intended, to do me injury. 

It is remarkable that Capt. Cooke is the only officer who has taken exception to my remark respecting the Instruction of his company, although you will find, in reference to the Rolls of Companies B. & F, Dragoons, that the same remark almost, and intended to convey the same opinion….

... For what object could Capt. Cooke have thought it necessary to say how many Squadron Drills there have been since the 25th of Oct. last? Why did he not say what other drills had been ordered—what circumstances had interfered to prevent frequent instruction &c? These questions will at once show how much injustice may be done by omitting to state the whole truth, and to what an embarrassing position a Comd. Officer may be against such a mode of attack.The right to complain, or the right to petition, may be abused in military as well as in civil life, and the remedy be found difficult to provide, but, in military service a due subordination requires that especial care should be taken that a defence, a petition, an application for redress should be confined to its true objects, and that such papers should not become the vehicle of indirect attack upon another party—a mode of attack objectionable because calculated to do injury in proportion to the difficulty of defending oneself against whatever is vague or inferential.

(Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1844 Wharton W72, accessible at fold3)

Cooke had strongly objected to Wharton's statement that being detached from the post, Cooke's company "lost the opportunity of receiving instruction in tactics."  Cooke's letter dated February 16, 1844, the one that offended Wharton, complained:

This if not a reflection on the state of the company last summer (when I was commanding officer) is at least an injurious comparison as to its instruction.

I therefore deem it my duty in defence, to remark, that besides the advantage of daily instruction & practice of all the most important duties of troops, the company was last summer drilled on the prairies more than it has been since it arrived here Oct. 25th. To be more specific, from that date to this, the only squadron drill that has taken place—as I believe— I ordered, & conducted myself about the 19th of Dec. ’43. 
(Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1844 Cooke, P S - C51, at fold3.com)

Immediately forwarding the written grievance from Cooke to the Adjutant General, Wharton also appended the following comment, dated February 17, 1844:

The remarks on the Muster Roll to which Captain Cooke takes exception I do not retract, nor can I under existing circumstances condescend to explain for his benefit. Had Capt. C., before addressing this letter to higher authority, in a spirit of frankness, mentioned to me his alledged ground of complaint, in a like spirit I would have endeavorured to have satisfied him that the object & scope of my remark was very far from being designed to cast a reflection on the state of his company last summer, and further, that the inference he draws from the remark is not a just one. But Capt. Cooke has chosen a different course, and I leave him to abide its results.

The insinuation, contained in the last paragraph of his letter, calculated, if not intended, to the disadvantage to me elsewhere, I will not, from a regard for the decorum which should mark official communications, duly characterise. I will simply say, that responsible for the state of my command, I claim to be the judge, under which circumstances tactical instruction must be dispensed with, and, consulting circumstances, what lesson or school, from time to time, it shall be given in. The forwarding this letter I beg not to be understood as giving any sanction, whatever, to Capt. Cooke in writing it.

The style and point of view in Wharton's 1844 journal are Wharton's. He signed it, and surely had no thought or need of copying from the diary (assuming there was one) of his perceived antagonist.  If anything, Wharton is likely to have consulted the extensive notes of James Henry Carleton, which were published as "Occidental Reminiscences" from November 9, 1844 to April 12, 1845 in the New York Spirit of the Times.