Leslie,
The sad truth is that Tennessee has never had much of a preservation movement like that in Virginia. Major battlefields like Franklin, Stones River, Nashville, and Chattanooga are fragmented or have all but disappeared. I am an East Tennessee native as well, and I know that our region in particular has little in the way of actual battlefield preservation. I would suggest contacting the Civil War Trust or the Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. Both have websites. Other than that, you might form your own group to preserve some important site. It's a lot of work, but at present there is no such organization that I know of in East Tennessee.
Nicholas Roland