Albert J. Lentz
Submitted by: Mark A. Snell and Eric Lindblade
Albert J. Lentz born around 1895. Albert Lentz served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1915 and the service was completed in 1918.
Story of Service
Private Albert J. Lentz of Company D, 18th Infantry, 1st Division, was the first soldier from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to be killed-in-action during World War I. Lentz fell near Cantigny, France on April 26, 1918, a month before the seminal American offensive of the war.
Albert had moved to Chicago about three years earlier but his parents, Israel and Susannah, still resided in Gettysburg at the time of Albert’s death.
Ironically, Private Lentz spent part of his childhood living in the house that today is known as “General Lee’s Headquarters,” which in July 1863 was owned by the widow Mrs. Mary Thompson.
While working in Chicago, Albert enlisted in the Regular Army and served in the Mexican Punitive Expedition. His regiment was one of the first American units to sail for France in 1917.
A week after Albert fell in battle, his family received the tragic news with “no details being given, only the fact of being killed in actions,” according to a report in one of the local newspapers, the Gettysburg Compiler. The connection between Lentz, his historic hometown and the cause for which the AEF was fighting did not go unnoticed elsewhere across the country. The Cincinnati Post ran an editorial that noted “Lentz, whose name shows German ancestry . . . [gave] his life to compel the land of his forbearers to return to sanity. His home, Gettysburg, [is] site of the great decisive battle in the war which ended human slavery on the American continent. Liberty—but is there need to say more?”
Albert J. Lentz was buried in a temporary cemetery France but his remains were brought home and laid to rest on April 4, 1921, in Gettysburg’s “Soldiers National Cemetery,” where he lies among the graves of thousands of Union soldiers who had perished in the 1863 battle. Today, Albert’s grave can be visited in Section 8, Plot 3. Gettysburg’s American Legion Post 202 is named in his memory.
