Eldeguello is right about the breech loading. If you want to hunt with this gun, you' ll have to do it during the regular rifle hunts in most states.
If you like the looks of the Sharps rifles, but don' t want to deal with paper cartridges, you might want to consider an 1874 Sharps, in a 45-70 caliber. With this gun you can buy ammo off the shelf (loaded with smokeless powder), or load you own with black powder. One of these will pretty much spent your all wife' s money.
Judging from the gun you choose for a starter into muzzleloading you' ll be a traditional sort of a guy. If you want to be able to hunt during the ML hunts, but want a gun that looks more like the old breech loaders Cabela' s offers a ML Rolling Block. This gun is based off the old Remington Breech loading Rolling block, but they plugged the breech, added a nipple and ram rod and viola! you' ve got a Muzzleloader. This gun would be classified an in-line muzzleloader, and may not be legal to use in all states. Follow the link below for a look at it:
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...rentType=&rid=
if the link doesn' t work goto
www.cabelas.com and do a search on rolling block.
I have this gun and its been a great gun to shoot.
Going even more traditional you have your sidelocks (percussion and flint). There are a lot of opitions here, but in my opinion the best off the shelf taditional guns are made by Lyman (I' m a bit biased here because I own one of these and love it).
That should give you a bit to think about, you can also go to my websit and I have a couple of articles about getting started in muzzleloading that might help you decide what you want to start with.
Good luck, welcome to the sport and keep us posted.