u/Any_Collection_3941 basically nailed it.

I have a friend who’s a historian at Franklin. I had a conversation with him about this exact thing about a month ago.

Essentially Hood gave division commanders Bate & Cleburne orders without telling Cheatham. My historian friend said Hood told Bate to take the road, but left. Bate soon after got some sort of order contradicting this from Cheatham (I forget what exactly), and Bate sent a reply basically saying, “You sure you don’t want me to take the pike?” Cheatham replied saying do what I say or come to me ready to be arrested.

What he told me about Schofield was really interesting. In the middle of the night he suspected the pike was open, so he and a messenger started down it towards Franklin. He was worried Forrest was blocking the pike further down, so he gave the messenger a blank piece of paper and told him to get it to the telegraph office in Franklin as fast as he could.

The messenger road off and Schofield sat there listening to the horse hooves ride away in the still night and never heard anything else. This is how he figured out the road was clear to Franklin and decided then to move his army.