All of TN was lost long before this once Vicksburg fell— the original mississippi riverine campaign (Donelson etc.) The North started there (ex: Shiloh).
There was no hope to stop the unionists in E. Tenn. So one can argue as many have Hood was high or something-— book is coming out in June this year— he wasn’t. The overall strategy of S from the get go was to politically grind down the N. The effort in TN was a last desperate and foolish effort to disrupt supply lines that were already secure, and Sherman being already more than half the way to Savannah and burning/pillaging up GA along the way. Total war in other words. By this point it was last stand time in Richmond, redoubts, delay and pray— and all logistical.
Will be interested for true facts about Hood’s personal state to come out, esp. as regards his relationships with his command staff. Also would like to know about the “peculiar behaviour of Patrick Cleburne” at Franklin— aside from being a warrior.
Hood was bothe a zealot and of fool IMHO. If you ask me what his plan was, I'd say it was kind of like a Hail Mary pass in the closing minutes of a football game. The Confederates knew they were losing and damn well needed som 'spectaluar victory' to change the tide. That is all assuming that Hood was a sane and rational commander. There are people who could question that opinion as well after his battle wound and his reliance on 'pain killing' drugs.
At any rate, he did manage to destroy a signifincantly large percent of the Confederate army in his futile attempt to get to the Ohio which never had a chance of success. This was all after Jefferson Davis fired their best commender, Johnston and put Hood in his place.
As to Clayborn, I don't know. He may have been the smartest of all of them, but he did not survive to tell his stories and he pissed a lot of very powerful people off by advocating arming slaves.