I can send on software serial, but not read?
Possibly the built-in UART (Hardware Serial) assigned to the same pins is interfering with SoftwareSerial? If you really want to us SoftwareSerial, try it on a pair of pins that has no hardware UART attached. 

And/or try SoftwareSerial (again, on a non-UART pair of pins) to connect to your PC (after uploading; you can't upload with it), and use Serial1 to connect to your device. This isn't the recommended or easiest way but it might help debug the problems you're seeing.