In the mail settings I have enabled show full date and newest messages on top, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the messages being sorted first alphabetically. I want my unread messages to list by date, not by from. Is there a way to do this?
If you are in the compact layout, click on the “Sorted by” at the top of the message list and check “Received”
If you are not in the compact view, simply click the “Received” column header and make sure the arrow is pointing down.
Thank you for your reply. I was familiar with the column configuration choices as I had messed with them quite a bit, but was never able to get “received” to show at the top of the column as a sort option, only “A to Z”. I went in to the config choices again and realized that you can move the “add” choices up or down. To make the “received” actually show on the column head, I had to actually remove several of the choices I had ticked and move “received” to the top, then add back choices like “from” and “subject”. Once I did that, “Newest” appeared at the column head so I can now sort by date. And I am happy! Thank you. 
Glad all is well. Now you can change your name to Frankly Happy.
Lol. Not until Comcast is out of my life.