Gen. (Bvt) Matthew Arbuckle, Jr (1778–1851) was a career soldier in the U.S. Army closely identified with the Indian Territory for the last thirty years of his life.

[2] In 1820, the President promoted Arbuckle to colonel and gave him command of the 7th Infantry Regiment, four of whose companies he led in 1821 to reinforce Fort Smith on the Arkansas River.

In 1824, he moved the regiment farther west, establishing Cantonments (later Forts) Gibson and later Towson, the first military posts in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

[1] During the Texas Revolution of 1835–1836, the majority of his troops were reassigned to General Zachary Taylor's "Army of Observation" at Fort Jessup, Louisiana, but Arbuckle managed to maintain order even as the pace of Indian removal accelerated.

Though civil war threatened to break out among some of the tribes, in 1841, when he left Fort Gibson for the second time, Arbuckle reported, "I have maintained peace on this frontier.

The General was making plans to extend farther west the security system that he had established to protect Americans traveling to California, when he died suddenly of cholera at Fort Smith on 11 June 1851 during a pandemic.

[1][3] Just before his death, several units of troops under his command had built an outpost on Wildhorse Creek in present-day Garvin County, Oklahoma, and the new post was named Fort Arbuckle in his honor.