JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<script src="http://tablesorter.com/jquery.tablesorter.min.js"></script>
<table class=tablesorter width="764" border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 id="objective3">
    <thead>
    <tr>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Strategy</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Objective</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Status</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Target Date</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Target</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Actual</th>
      <th bgcolor="#396FAE" class="divtopheader1">Cumulative</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td align="left" valign="top" class="tvertheadersm">Conservation</td>
      <td width="27%" class="tvertheadersm">statutory authority.</td>
      <td width="8%" align="center" valign="middle" class="tbody2">
          <input type="hidden" value="111">
           <thewordIMGshouldgohere src="images/1" alt="Objective met" width=30 height=40 />
      </td>
      <td width="11%" align=center class="tbody2">
          <input type=hidden value="092010">September<br>2010</td>
          <td align=center class="tbody2">14 agencies</td>
      <td align=center class="tbody2">14 agencies</td>
      <td align=center class="tbody2">0 agencies</td>
    </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

JavaScript

$(document).ready(function() {
    // add parser through the tablesorter addParser method
    $.tablesorter.addParser({
        // set a unique id
        id: 'custom_parser',
        is: function(s) {
            // return false so this parser is not auto detected
            return false;
        },
        format: function(s, table, cell) {
            // format your data for normalization
            alert("Debug: value of hidden input: " + $('input', cell).val());
            return $('input', cell).val();
        },
        // set type, either numeric or text
        type: 'numeric'
    });

    $("table").tablesorter({
        // pass the headers argument and assing a object
        headers: {
            // assign the secound column (we start counting zero)
            2: {
                sorter:'custom_parser'
            }
        }
    });
});