Using Newspapers for Research: North and South

Here's a situation that cropped up during my recent research of a South Carolina officer: In my quest for details about his death in battle at Spotsylvania, Virginia, I contacted the Anderson County Library in hopes that they might have copies of the local newspaper that reported the battle. I was disappointed to learn that the paper, The Anderson Intelligencer, did not publish between May 1861 and February 1865. Not sure if this is just a coincidence, but it is the first local newspaper North or South that I've discovered that had suspended publication during the war.