Editing Caleb Cushing (section)

===Return to Massachusetts===
[[File:Caleb Cushing by Alexander Hay Ritchie.jpeg|thumb|upright=.95|Engraving of Caleb Cushing]]
In 1847, while again a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he introduced a bill appropriating money for the equipment of a regiment to serve in the [[Mexican–American War]]; although the bill was defeated, he raised the necessary funds privately.<ref name="EB1911"/>

He served in the Army during the Mexican War first as colonel of the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, of which he was placed in command on January 15, 1847. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers on April 14 of the same year. He did not see combat during this conflict, and entered Mexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified. He was discharged from the Army on July 20, 1848.

In 1847 and again in 1848 the Democrats nominated him for [[Governor of Massachusetts]], but on each occasion he was defeated at the polls. He was again a representative in the state legislature in 1851,<ref name="EB1911"/> was offered the position as [[Massachusetts Attorney General]] in 1851, but declined; and served as mayor of Newburyport in 1851 and 1852. (He had written a major history of the town when he was 26 years old.)

He became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852. During the presidency [[Franklin Pierce]], from March 7, 1853, until March 3, 1857, he was [[Attorney General of the United States]]. Cushing supported the March 1857 [[Dred Scott v. Sandford|Dred Scott decision]].<ref>{{cite web| title=Letter, Roger Brooke Taney to Caleb Cushing thanking Cushing for his support of Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, 9 November 1857| date=9 November 1857| url=https://www.loc.gov/item/mcc.070/| publisher=Library of Congress| location=Washington, D.C.| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref>

In 1858, 1859, 1862, and 1863 he again served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Also during this time, he founded the Cushing Land Agency in [[St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin]]. The building it was housed in, now known as the [[Cushing Land Agency Building]], is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].