have a column within a multicolumn spreadsheet in the format 4/14/2009.
I would like to sort newest to oldest.

I have checked, the cell is formatted with the leading apostrophe
'4/1/2009

When I sort, I received the following:

StartDate
4/1/2009
4/10/2009
4/13/2009
4/13/2009
4/13/2009
4/14/2009
4/14/2009
4/14/2009
4/15/2009
4/15/2009
4/16/2009
4/16/2009
4/16/2009
4/16/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/17/2009
4/18/2009
4/2/2009
4/20/2009
4/20/2009
4/21/2009


How can this be sorted my month, day, year?
Thank you for your assitance.